ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how small-hearted economy and pitiful tactlessness ruined the British chances of holding the Transvaal. The return of the Transvaal to political community with the rest of South Africa was looked upon by most South African opinion as certain. A united South Africa was an ideal that was quite as much Dutch as it was English. The career of Burgers, the scapegoat of the annexation, as President of the Transvaal ended in humiliation. To build his railway Burgers hoped for the material assistance of the Portuguese Government. There were two ways of safeguarding the British monopoly of the coastline. The first was to prevent the construction of a railway line between the Transvaal and Delagoa Bay; the second was to turn the independent Republic into a British possession. The second had the advantage that it promised to do far more than control the Transvaal’s relations with Delagoa Bay.
