The sequel can be given in General Butler's words: "I looked on the one side," he said, in giving evidence before the War Commission, "and I saw what seemed to me a very serious political agitation going on with a Party that I had not alluded to yet, whom I had always looked upon as a Third Party; they were pressing on all they knew. The Government did not seem to be aware of that, and this telegram brought matters to such a point that I thought it gave me the opportunity to speak. So I took these words 'any observations,' and answered in a way which I thought would at least ring the War Office bell." The telegram with which General Butler "rang the War Office bell" was this: "You ask for my observations: present condition of opinion here is highly excited, and doubtless the news _quoting_ preparations referred to in your telegram, if it transpires, will add largely to the ferment which I am endeavouring to reduce by every means. Persistent effort of a party to produce war forms, in my estimation, gravest elements in situation here. Believe war between white races, coming as sequel to Jameson Raid, and subsequent events of last three years, would be greatest calamity that ever occurred in South Africa." This telegram elicited the following reply from the Home Government: "You cannot understand too clearly that, whatever your private opinions, it is your duty to be guided in all questions of policy by the High Commissioner, who is fully aware of our views, and whom you will, of course, loyally support." In the course of his evidence before the War Commission General Butler gave some further explanation of the motives which had prompted his reply to the telegram of June 21st. In response to the question, "It was never in your contemplation that Mr. Krüger would declare war?" he replied: [Sidenote: General Butler's view.] "My view was this, that as long as I held the neck of the bottle, so to speak, there would be no war ... but to my mind the minute there was the least indication of the Imperial Government coming in, in front of, or behind, that party [_i.e._ "the party of the Raid, the South African League"], there would be a serious state of things. Until then there was, to my mind, no probability--no possibility--of an invasion. That was the state of my mind at the time ... [and] I wished to point it out before final decisions were arrived at." And in a note which he desired to be appended to his evidence before the War Commission, General Butler wrote with reference to his failure to endorse Lord Milner's request for immediate reinforcements, that in his opinion "such a demand at such a time would be to force the hands of the Government, play into the hands of the 'Third Party,' and render [himself] liable to the accusation in the future that [he] had by this premature action produced or hastened hostilities."[81]