WHEN he ascended the throne (1901) the contest with the Boers in South Africa was still going on. General Botha, one of the Boer leaders, publicly stated that the King did everything in his power to secure the establishment of an honorable and permanent peace between the combatants. More than that, even, he was in favor of granting a large measure of self-government to the very people who had only just laid down the arms with which they had been fighting him.*
But the King’s influence for good was not limited to the Old World. It extended across the Atlantic. Mr Choate, who was formerly our ambassador to England, said that Edward VII endeavored to remove every cause of friction between Great Britain and America. While he lay on a sick bed he signed a treaty relating to the Panama Canal, which made ‘it possible for the United States to construct the waterway and to protect it forever.’*
See The Boer Wars. The Boers did not repay Edward’s kindness as they should, and the progress of the Union of South Africa was very different to that of Australia or Canada, where the The Crimson Thread of British kinship was more highly prized. In 1961, the Union of South Africa declared itself a Republic, and repudiated the Commonwealth in order to maintain the Apartheid system which was so abhorrent to the Crown and to the other members.
This was the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty of 1901, which repealed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850. By the earlier agreement, both countries agreed not to build and control such a canal unilaterally; King Edward’s signature allowed the USA to go ahead with the Panama Canal. It did however require that the USA must ensure that all nations were allowed to use the canal, and that it should never be taken by force.