More than two years have gone by since Sir Alfred Milner was sent as High Commissioner to South Africa, during all which time, backed by her Majesty's present Government, he has been doing his best to secure redress for the Uitlanders, and to arrange various differences that have arisen between the Empire and the Transvaal Republic. At length these efforts resulted in the meeting between himself and President Kruger, known as the Bloemfontein Conference, which took place about four months ago. At that Conference Sir Alfred Milner advanced the request, modest enough seeing that they are entitled to nothing less than equal rights with the other "inhabitants of the Transvaal," that those Uitlanders who wished to adopt the country as their home should be entitled to the franchise after five years' residence. This was refused by President Kruger as endangering the independence of the State, and the Conference broke up. It was from this time forward that war came to be looked upon as probable. In reply to various despatches and representations of the Imperial Government, the President and Volksraad made certain offers of a franchise which, if they were ever seriously meant, were hampered with provisos, such as rendered them impossible for this country to accept. Thus the five years' offer of August 19 was coupled with the conditions that in the future there should be no interference in the internal affairs of the Republic, that her Majesty's Government would not further insist on the assertion of the suzerainty, and that the principle of arbitration in the event of future differences arising should be admitted. Had the Government agreed to these terms it would have meant, of course, that the last shadow of the Queen's authority would have vanished from the Transvaal, and as they had bound themselves not to interfere in future, that they might be forced to look on while the franchise which was granted one year was repealed or rendered nugatory the next. Also, it must be remembered that this question of the franchise does not cover all the grounds of difference between the two parties; indeed, it seems that a great deal too much importance has been given to the matter. Even if a certain number of Uitlanders elected to become citizens of a Boer state, it is difficult to see, however advantageous that circumstance might prove to themselves, in what way it would directly assist the Imperial power on such a question, let us say, as the treatment of our Indian subjects settled in the Transvaal. To begin with, the new-born burghers might be indifferent to the needs and wishes of the country they had renounced. They might even consider that their oath of allegiance bound them to oppose those wishes. At the least, even if they had the power to help us, which could not be the case for many years, surely it would be neither wise nor dignified for the power to which they once belonged to trust solely to their good offices.