The policy of Schreiner during the months preceding the war is obscure. While refusing help to Kimberley he was allowing munitions of war, which were way billed as pianos and hardware, to pass through the Cape Colony to the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. He does not appear to have been actively disloyal to the Imperial Government and in his own way he probably did his best to keep the peace. His mind was cast in a mould which is not uncommon in the British Empire but which is rarely found outside it. He was more anxious to stand well with its enemies, and like the Unjust Steward to have a claim to a place in their houses, if they were successful, than to work for its security. It was with great difficulty that Sir A. Milner as late as September 18 obtained his consent to the dispatch of a few regulars to Kimberley to form the backbone of a defensive force. He seems to have retained almost to the end, in spite of all indications to the contrary, the belief that the war would be averted or at least that the Orange Free State would not join in it. Yet in this he erred in good company. Mr. Balfour said that if on September 28 he had been asked whether war with the Orange Free State was a probable contingency he would have replied that war with Switzerland was one equally probable; and Lord Lansdowne declined before September 23 to discuss with Lord Roberts the question of operations in the Free State. Buller, with surer insight, had foreseen the alliance as far back as 1881. The War Office, however, was to a certain extent on the alert and distrusted the optimism of Schreiner and of a high military official who had been for some years in South Africa. Officers were sent to Kimberley to organize a scheme of defence, but having regard to the susceptibility of the Capetown Government it was done secretly and confidentially and Schreiner was outwitted. By October 7 the town, which was under the command of Colonel Kekewich, was secure against a _coup de main_ though not against a vigorous and sustained siege. Little more than an eighth of the garrison was composed of regular troops; the artillery was out of date; rifles and ammunition were deficient. On October 13 Rhodes threw himself into Kimberley and became for better or worse a power in the town. As soon as the siege began the relative value of the chief products of the mines was inverted: water, the most generous gift of nature and hitherto an embarrassment in the workings, became for the time being more valuable than the diamonds.