[Footnote 47: The State-Secretaryship was offered first to Mr. Abraham Fischer, of the Free State, by whom it was declined (_Memoirs of Paul Krüger_, vol. ii., p. 297). The Cape Afrikanders desired the appointment of Mr. Smuts.]
[Footnote 48: On May 7th, 1897, President Krüger had formally requested the Imperial Government to allow all questions at issue between the two Governments under the Convention to be submitted to the arbitration of the President of the Swiss Republic. To this proposal Mr. Chamberlain replied, on October 10th, that the relationship of Great Britain to the South African Republic being that of a suzerain Power, it would be impossible for the Imperial Government to permit the intervention of a foreign Power. On April 16th, 1898, in a despatch embodying the legal opinions of Mr. Farelly, President Krüger claims that the South African Republic is an independent State, and denies the existence of any "suzerainty" on the part of Great Britain. In forwarding this despatch Lord Milner made the apposite comment that the propriety of employing the term suzerainty to express the rights possessed by Great Britain is an "etymological question," and Mr. Chamberlain, replying on December 15th, accepts President Krüger's declaration that he is willing to abide by the articles of the Convention, reasserts the claim of suzerainty, declines to allow foreign arbitration, and demands the immediate fulfilment of Article IV. In a despatch of May 9th, 1899, Mr. Reitz asserts that the Republic is "a sovereign international State"; and on June 13th Mr. Chamberlain replies that he has no intention of continuing the discussion.]
In the (English) winter of 1898-9 Lord Milner paid a visit to England. Sir William Greene, who had left Pretoria on a holiday on June 29th, was also at home during the same period. Lord Milner's visit was due in part to the necessity for medical treatment;[49] but, in any case, it had become desirable that he should be able to communicate fully to Mr. Chamberlain the grave views which he had formed on the South African situation. He left for England on November 2nd, landed on the 19th, sailed on January 28th, and reached Capetown again on February 14th. During the whole of the two months that he was in England he was engaged in an endeavour to impress upon Mr. Chamberlain, and everybody else with whom he could converse, that the existing state of affairs was one which, if allowed to remain unchanged, would end in the loss of South Africa.