If ever a conflict was foisted on two countries for mercenary motives it was the Transvaal War, and a shrewd and impartial mind like Milner's did not take long to discover that such was the case.
He was not, however, a man capable of lending himself meekly to schemes of greed, however wilily they were cloaked.

His was not the kind of nature that for the sake of peace submits to things of which it does not approve.
This man, who was represented as an oppressor of the Dutch, was in reality their best friend, and perhaps the one who believed the most in their eventual loyalty to the English Crown.

It is a thousand pities that when the famous Bloemfontein Conference took place Sir Alfred Milner, as he still was at that time, had not yet acquired the experience which later became his concerning the true state of things in the Transvaal.

Had he at that time possessed the knowledge which he was later to gain, when the beginning of hostilities obliged so many of the ruling spirits of Johannesburg to migrate to the Cape, it is likely that he would have acted differently.

It was not easy for the High Commissioner to shake off the influence of all that he heard, whether told with a good or bad intention, and it was still harder for him in those first days of his office to discern who was right or who was wrong among those who crowded their advice upon him--and never forgave him when he did not follow their ill-balanced counsels.
Concerning the outstanding personality of Cecil Rhodes, the position of Sir Alfred Milner was even more difficult and entangled than in regard to anyone else.