Arizona republican., 1899-11-27
PhRNIx. NOVEMBER a7. 1899.

It is true that war wipes out all rights of the conquered, based on pre-
 vious compacts with
 MIGHT the conGuerer and pre-
 MAKES sents the latter q clean
 RIGHT. table on which to write
 such terms as may please him. But in practice the con- queror uses this right only to make such changes as may seem good to him, preserving so much of the old relations as may seem to him toler- able. It is certain that an importuhate minority in England will demand pres ervation to the Transvaal of a large part of the rights it claimed and to the Orange Free State of large part of those it possessed before the war, and the old dispute will arise as to just what these rights were. especially those affected by the conventions of 1881 and 1884
 But there will be this important diff ference, that no dispute can arise be- tween the Boer states themselves and Great Britain. All the open questions before the war will have been closed by it's supreme arbitrament. There can be no legal quibbling whether or not suzerainty was extinguished by surrender of part of it's preroga- tives, or whether or not the right to control the foreign relations of protected state to safeguard national interests must carry the right, in an emergency, to control it's domestic policy for protection of individual sub jects. Whatever concessions Great Britain shall make. to either the Transvaal or the Orange Free State, will be the free act of expediency of justice, not the recognition of a right heretofore in dispute. All rights will have been extinguished by conquest Great Britain may impose MT. Cham berlain's terms, restore the complete suzerainty of 1881 or reduce the Trans vaal to the state of a crown colony it had after the Zulu war, and the con quered will have no legal right to ob- ject.
 Moreover. all the compacts and po- litjSal relations between the Boers
 d English from the beginning will
 and on the same footing. All will 'have been erased by war and the Brit ish will have as much right to restore one as another. Discussion will not be confined to the puzzling situation . created by the partial revision in 1884
 the difficult relation established in UsS1. The Boers were British subjects when they "trekked," and changed that status only by compacts that war has erased. They remained British subjects, though their duties were in abeyance, during the early period of neglect. Both states got independence by the Sand River convention of 1854, and the Orange Free State kept it. But that convention was wiped out when they made war on Great Brit ain, and the Free State Boers re- turn to their original status of Brit ish subjects. The TransvaaI was an- nexed as a crown colony in 1877, to protect the whole border from the Zulus and to save it from extinction. It won the partial indeS-ndence of the conventions of 1881 and 1884 by successful rebellion, but will forfeit all it's rights by unsuccessful war against Great Britain. In fine, the independent political existence and all the political institutions of both states rest on com pacts made by Great Britain with her former subjects, which they have for feited by making war upon her. It will rest with her after conquest to restore as much O. as little as may seem for the best interest of the whole empire.
 The commissioner of education, Pro- lessor w. T. Harris, is right in insist