CHAPTER XVI.
THE ARBITRATION QUESTION.[22] 1 .-- _How the Transvaal interprets Arbitration._ According to the idea prevailing throughout Europe, President Krueger had conceded everything from the franchise point of view, when all was ruined by Mr.Chamberlain raising the Suzerainty Question at the last moment.

We have seen the value of these two assertions.
Then, certain members of the ultra peace party ask hotly: "Why did he not accept arbitration ?" The word in itself appears to them to possess some sovereign virtue.

Dr.Kuyper seems to me to be suffering from that terrible intellectual malady psittacism when he exclaims:-- "Arbitration is the _mot d'ordre_ of modern civilisation." and he adds:-- "As if arbitration were not the rule between _masters_ and _workmen_." I have often demonstrated the "illusion of such arbitration" (among others see _Le Siecle_, October 6th, 1899), the negative effects produced in France by the law on optional arbitration, and in England by the Conciliation Act of 1896.
From an international point of view, the judgment passed by the Arbitration Tribunal in the matter of the Delagoa Bay Railway, after a lapse of ten years, is not one to induce governments to have recourse to it.
In the relations between England and the Transvaal, the Arbitration Question is closely connected with the Suzerainty Question.

It was raised May 7th, 1897, by the State Secretary, Mr.Van Boeschoten, in reply to the complaints made in Mr.Chamberlain's despatch of March 6th, 1897, relating to the violation of the 1884 Convention.

Mr.Van Boeschoten's proposal was that the President of the Swiss Confederation should be asked to appoint an arbitrator.
On October 16th, 1897, Mr.Chamberlain replied:-- "The Government of the South African Republic proposes that the contested points of the Convention shall be submitted to arbitration, the arbitrator to be appointed by the President of the Swiss Confederation.