Note Back to Main Text — Chapter V

"On July 12th Her Majesty's Government requested the Government of the South African Republic to give them time to consider the measure and communicate their views before it was proceeded with. To this the Government of the South African Republic replied, on July 13th, with a polite negative, saying that 'the whole matter was out of the hands of the Government, and it was no longer possible for the Government to satisfy the demands of the Secretary of State.' The State-Attorney informed Mr. Greene[117] at the same time that 'the present proposals represented absolutely the greatest concession that could be got from the Volksraad, and could not be enlarged. He personally had tried hard for seven years' retrospective franchise, but the Raad would not hear of it, and it was only with difficulty that the present proposals were obtained.' This was on the 12th, but within a week the seven years' retrospective franchise had been adopted. Indeed, the statement of the absolute impossibility of obtaining more than a particular measure of enfranchisement from the Volksraad or the burghers has been made over and over again in the history of this question—never more emphatically than by the President himself at Bloemfontein—and has over and over again been shown to be a delusion."[118]