Meanwhile, Loch had been forced to intervene in another matter. When the commandeering difficulty of 1894 had roused the Uitlanders in the Transvaal to a dangerous pitch of excitement, he travelled to Pretoria to use his personal influence with President Kruger, and obtained the withdrawal of the obnoxious commandeering regulations. In the following year he entered a strong protest against the new Transvaal franchise law. Nonetheless the general situation in South Africa was assuming year by year a more threatening aspect. Cecil Rhodes, then prime minister of Cape Colony, was strongly in favor of a more energetic policy than was supported by the Imperial government. At the end of March 1895 the high commissioner, finding himself, it is believed, out of touch with his ministers, returned home embarrassed, a few months before the expiry of his term of office. In the same year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Loch, of Drylaw in the County of Midlothian.