But The Most Important Thing Of All, And The Fruitful
Cause Of Future Trouble, Lay In An Omission.
A suzerainty is a
vague term, but in politics, as in theology, the more nebulous a
thing is the more does it excite the imagination and the passions
of men.
This suzerainty was declared in the preamble of the first
treaty, and no mention of it was made in the second. Was it thereby
abrogated or was it not? The British contention was that only the
articles were changed, and that the preamble continued to hold good
for both treaties. They pointed out that not only the suzerainty,
but also the independence, of the Transvaal was proclaimed in that
preamble, and that if one lapsed the other must do so also. On the
other hand, the Boers pointed to the fact that there was actually a
preamble to the second Convention, which would seem, therefore, to
have taken the place of the first. The point is so technical that
it appears to be eminently one of those questions which might with
propriety have been submitted to the decision of a board of foreign
jurists - or possibly to the Supreme Court of the United States. If
the decision had been given against Great Britain, we might have
accepted it in a chastened spirit as a fitting punishment for the
carelessness of the representative who failed to make our meaning
intelligible. Carlyle has said that a political mistake always ends
in a broken head for somebody.
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