In the House of Commons Mr. Chamberlain announced that he had proposed to the Transvaal Government that a joint commission should be appointed to test the efficacy of the scheme of electoral reform embodied in the new Franchise Law. This proposal was set out in detail in a despatch already addressed to the High Commissioner, the substance of which had been telegraphed[119] to him on the preceding day (July 27th). The British Government assumed that "the concessions now made to the Uitlanders were intended in good faith to secure to them some approach to the equality which was promised in 1881"; they proposed that the "complicated details and questions of a technical nature" involved in the new law should be discussed in the first instance by delegates appointed by the High Commissioner and by the South African Republic; and if, and when, a "satisfactory agreement" had been reached on these points, they further proposed that all disputes as to the terms of the Convention should be settled by a "judicial authority, whose independence ... would be above suspicion," and all remaining matters in respect of the political representation of the Uitlanders by "another personal Conference" between the High Commissioner and President Krüger. [Footnote 119: C. 9,518.] Although the position which the Salisbury Cabinet had now taken up was one which placed them beyond the danger of accepting an illusory franchise scheme in lieu of an adequate measure of reform, it was not the course of action which was best to follow, except from the point of view of opening the eyes of the British public. In itself further delay was dangerous. It gave the Boers more time to arm, while we, for this very reason for which it was necessary to protract the negotiations, were prevented from arming vigorously. It discouraged our friends in South Africa, and made them even begin to doubt whether Great Britain "meant business." It was good policy to offer the Joint Inquiry, given the truth of the assumption upon which this offer was based--namely, that the Bill represented an honest desire on the part of President Krüger to provide a peaceable settlement of the Uitlander question. Lord Milner knew, within the limits of human intelligence, that this assumption was wholly unwarranted. The Home Government apparently did not. As the result of this difference, Lord Milner's policy was again deflected to the extent that two months of negotiation were devoted to a purely futile endeavour to persuade the Pretoria Executive to prove the good faith of a proposal, which was never intended to be anything more than a pretext for delay. And, as before, the injury to British interests lay in the fact that, while the Home Government was prevented from making any adequate use of this delay by its determination not to make preparations for war until war was in sight, the period was fully utilised by President Krüger, who since Bloemfontein had been resolutely hastening the arrangements