The President of the South African League in the Transvaal, Mr.W.John Wybergh, a consulting engineer by profession, was dismissed by one of the principal companies.
These undeniable facts prove that "capitalist intrigues," as Dr.Kuyper calls them, were not the causes of the present war.
The British Government could not disregard a petition which 21,684 British subjects addressed to it; even had its responsibility not been pledged by Articles 7 and 14 of the Convention of 1884, relying upon which those British subjects had settled in the Transvaal.

Every civilised Government concerns itself with injuries done to its citizens in foreign lands.

The petition of March 28th, was acknowledged by Mr.
Chamberlain in a despatch to Sir A.Milner of May 10th, 1899, in which he says that "the complaints of the Uitlanders rested on a solid basis." From the moment that the British Government "put its hand to the plough," and that Lord Salisbury declared it would not draw back, the end was easy to foresee.

Mr.Krueger had recourse to his habitual expedients.

I said at the time what must certainly be the result; and an eminent French statesman may remember a conversation I then had with him, in the course of which he declared that the English would never, never, make up their minds to go to war.