The proposal made by the British Commissioner for a settlement of difficulties was plain, reasonable in all respects, singularly careful of all the just susceptibilities of the Boer Government. It consented to the maintenance of the dominance of the minority, except in requiring respect for personal and public rights accorded to individuals in all civilized governments,--and in the declaration of the strict rights of British subjects consent was given to the theory of the utter independence of the Boers. There was a careful limitation here, so that even the vanity of the semi-barbarians, who asserted that they were and must be always the exclusive rulers, was not to be suddenly and in a hostile sense disturbed. There was much conceded merely to save the excessive and savage self-esteem of the Boers, who, however, positively refused justice and demanded without mitigation exercise of a despotism so unwarranted and wicked as to be intolerable to civilization. The Boer statements, soliciting sympathy, circulated in the United States have dwelt upon the assertion that the British subjects, who meant to reside permanently in the Transvaal, refused to become citizens of the South African Republic on any conditions. This way of putting the case was misleading, and purposely so. The British subjects did not agree to renounce their character as subjects, until assured they could be citizens of the South African Republic so far, and _that the large majority of the Europeans, the white men in the Transvaal, might have a small minority of representation in the Volks Raad, and this upon the belief that if a very few members of that body who knew the truth of the conditions were able to speak it in public and officially, there would be a mitigation of the remorseless tyranny under which the Uitlanders had been suffering_. [Sidenote: Boers Positively Refuse Justice]