Since the April previous a correspondence had been going on between Dr.Leyds, Secretary of State for the South African Republic, and Mr.Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, upon the existence or non-existence of the suzerainty.

On the one hand, it was contended that the substitution of a second convention had entirely annulled the first; on the other, that the preamble of the first applied also to the second.

If the Transvaal contention were correct it is clear that Great Britain had been tricked and jockeyed into such a position, since she had received no quid pro quo in the second convention, and even the most careless of Colonial Secretaries could hardly have been expected to give away a very substantial something for nothing.

But the contention throws us back upon the academic question of what a suzerainty is.

The Transvaal admitted a power of veto over their foreign policy, and this admission in itself, unless they openly tore up the convention, must deprive them of the position of a sovereign State.