Mr. Marais reported the whole of this conversation to the Executive Council and, upon his making use of the expression ‘olive branch,’ the President exclaimed excitedly, ’What are they talking about?  What is an olive branch?’ When this was explained to him he nodded and said, ‘Yes, that is what we will do,’ and Mr. Wolmarans another member of the Executive exclaimed, ’Go back to the Johannesburg people and tell them that we have already offered the olive branch by voluntarily withdrawing our police from the town in order to avoid conflict, thus leaving them in entire possession.  It is for them to say whether they will accept it.’

The meeting at which Messrs. Marais and Malan were commissioned to negotiate with the Johannesburg people was, with the exception of General Smit (then dying and since dead), attended by every member of the Executive Council, and there is no truth in the suggestion made on behalf of the Government that it was an informal meeting of a few men who were not acting on behalf of the State, nor is there any justification for the statement made by Judge Ameshof in the witness-box that Messrs. Marais and Malan were not officially authorized to negotiate with the Reform Committee.

Messrs. Marais and Malan met the Reform Committee in the general committee-room, and both gentlemen addressed the meeting several times, going fully into the grievances complained of by the Uitlanders and explaining very fully the position of the Government and their attitude during the meeting of the Executive Council which they had been called upon to attend.  They stated that they had been sent by a full meeting of the Executive to ask the Reform Committee to send a deputation to Pretoria in order to meet a Commission to be appointed by Government with a view to effecting a peaceful settlement and the redress of grievances; that the Commission would consist of Chief Justice Kotze, Judge Ameshof, and another, probably a member of the Executive Council; that the Government were willing to consider and redress the grievances, and were, above all things, anxious to avoid conflict with their own subjects.

Then came the much-quoted expression:  ’We come in fact to offer you the olive branch; it is for you to say if you will take it; if you are sincere in your professions, you will.’  A great deal of discussion took place, many members of the Committee maintaining that, although they placed full confidence in the gentlemen who had been sent by Government, they were nevertheless convinced that there was treachery at the bottom of it, and they stated in plain language what has become more or less an article of faith with the Uitlander:  ’Whenever the Government are earnestly intent upon deceiving us they select emissaries in whose character and good faith we have complete trust, and by deceiving them ensure that we shall be misled.’  Both gentlemen repeatedly assured the meeting that the Government were most anxious to remove the causes of discontent, and stated