Even

to the utmost, and cannot be settled with a stroke of the pen. Mr. Chamberlain's Home Rule scheme, well intended though it was, did not commend itself to the Johannesburgers any more than to the Transvaal Government. The policy of President Kruger, whatever his detractors may say, has been simple and straightforward throughout. The object of his life and of his rule is to maintain the dearly bought independence of his people. This is the simple test by which all legislation in the Transvaal should be measured, and this, it would seem, is a sufficient contradiction to all the stories about secret treaties with Germany; but we have besides the President's word:

I have reason to believe [he says in his official letter of the 25th of February] that the British Government has come to the decision to make no alteration in this [Art. IV. of the Convention] on account of false representations made to it and lying reports spread by the Press and otherwise with a certain object, to the effect that the Government of the Republic has called in, or sought, the protection of other Powers. While I thankfully acknowledge, and will ever acknowledge, the sympathy of other Powers or their subjects, and the conduct of the last named has, in the light of the trials recently passed through, on the whole offered a favourable contrast to that of British subjects, there is, nevertheless, nothing further from my thoughts than to strive for the protection of a foreign Power, which I will never seek. Neither I nor the people of the Republic will tolerate an interference with the internal relations from any Power whatever, and I am prepared, if the course proposed by me be adopted, to give the necessary assurances for this, in order that her British Majesty's Government need have no fear that her interests in South Africa should be injured.

The dignified answer of the President to the German Emperor's telegram gives the key to the whole position. It is not to friendly powers' that the Transvaal looks for support. Mit Gottes Hülfe (with the help of God) hoffen wir weiter alles mögliche zu thun für die Handhabung der theuer bezahlten Unabhängigkeit und die Beständigung unsrer geliebten Republik.'

It is always assumed by the advocates of the Uitlanders that they are a homogeneous party who outnumber the Boers and have therefore an irresistible claim to a voice in the legislation; but what are the facts? As in every mining population, a large proportion are composed of the worst elements of all nationalities. Many others do not care for political rights as long as they can pursue their avocations undisturbed. The Hollanders and Germans feel a kinship with the Boers-they understand them and are in sympathy with them. French interests are chiefly represented by shareholders. The Uitlanders who clamour about grievances are mainly British subjects, and these do not include the working men. Their position has been lately stated in a letter published at Pretoria :

We have now been in the country four years, have earned on an average 67. per week, have saved a few hundreds, and last year had a six months' holiday trip to the Old Country. Would any other country in the world enable us to do this? No. Then why try to upset the prosperous state of affairs in this country, which

will be sure to continue for many years? If there was any reason for fighting, if England received a blow or an insult, we, as British-born, would be among the first to shoulder our guns in defence of the country we love; but that is a very different matter to fighting against a country which provides, and will continue to provide, bread and enough to spare for thousands who can barely exist in England. We hope this letter will have the intended effect of making the working men think for themselves independently, and not be led by a lot of political agitators whose sole object is to 'compound' Johannesburg, and bring down wages fifty per cent. What do working men care about political rights? Not ten in a hundred would lose an hour to vote if they had the right to do so to-morrow.

Two real grievances from which the working men have suffered are the poisonous state of the water supply, to which a large percentage of the sickness and deaths at Johannesburg can be traced, and the exorbitant house rent, and both water supply and houses are in the hands of the capitalists themselves. The first will, however, be remedied, as there are works in course of construction which will provide Johannesburg with fresh water in a few months; the second is chiefly due to the enormous influx of strangers. It is repeated ad nauseam that the Uitlanders have developed the country, that they have enriched it, and yet have no voice in the representation. Now, in the first place, they have developed the country entirely in their own interest-the Boers never asked them to come and, in fact, in the Transvaal as well as in the Cape Colony, there is a strong wish to put limits to immigration. One great complaint of the Uitlanders is that they are highly taxed, but the taxation does not compare unfavourably with that of other mining countries, and it is only reasonable that those who derive their wealth from the Transvaal under the protection of its laws, should bear the expense of the public works which are mainly undertaken for their benefit. Moreover, the President is in the position of the great physician who asks high fees, not because he wishes to be extortionate, but in order to limit his practice. He does not wish to make it too easy for gold diggers and speculators to amass huge fortunes-which they are nevertheless doing. When the President was in England in 1884, he deplored that gold had been found in his country. He knew the difficulties it would bring, and his previsions have been more than justified. "There is no mistaking,' say the Reform leaders, 'the significance of the action of the President when he opposed the throwing open of the town lands of Pretoria on the ground that "he might have a second Johannesburg there," nor that of his speech upon the motion for the employment of diamond drills to prospect Government lands, which he opposed hotly on the ground that "there is too much gold here already." It is not difficult to understand the antagonism between those whose actions are governed by the fluctuations on the Stock Exchange and the man who believes in a great cause and devotes his life to it.

Many of the British Uitlanders do not wish to make the Transvaal their permanent home; they do not wish their children to be brought

up with the children of the Boers; they openly state that the Boers are not their peers; they continually speak of them with contempt and dislike, and yet they claim equal political rights with them.

Why did not those men have themselves naturalised [asks one of the speakers in the late debates in the Cape Parliament]? They despised the Government too much for that, and did not like to do burgher service. If foreigners treated a Government thus, it could not be expected that the Government would favour them. Immigrants in Australia and America called themselves Australians and Americans; but the Transvaal foreigners did not do that: they remained foreigners, so that they were the cause of their own grievances. A general franchise there would mean the overthrow of the Government.

The debates in the Cape Parliament are very instructive reading to those who are constantly being misled by the undue stress that is laid on the Uitlander grievances in order to condone the conspiracy. Mr. Innes spoke with great moderation in support of his motion, expressing the hope that the South African Republic would give 'favourable consideration' to any legitimate grievances,' and though the House showed no want of friendliness to the Uitlanders, their grievances found but little recognition, and the motion was thrown out.

What [said the Attorney-General, Sir Thomas Upington] was supposed to be the greatest grievance of all? Was it not the franchise? And yet he found, when he was in the South African Republic at the end of last year, that gross ignorance prevailed as to what was meant by application for the franchise; that the franchise could not be given unless they renounced their allegiance which they owed the sovereign under whom they were born. No alien could vote in this country-it would be well to consider this-no alien could sit as a member of Parliament. No alien on the same lines should be a voter-should have the franchise-in the South African Republic unless he did what aliens did in the Cape Colony-renounce his allegiance to his natural sovereign and take the oath of allegiance to his new ruler. . . Who then were going to do it? . . . He thought this cry about the franchise had been made far too much of.

And even the Premier, Sir Gordon Sprigg, thought

' that the conferring of rights on those people had to be done with very great care and very great circumspection, considering what was the character of a great part of the population there evanescent and unsettled. Moreover, he was not aware himself whether those people would accept the franchise if it were offered to them upon the condition which would doubtless be still imposed-that they must renounce their rights as British citizens and become burghers of the Transvaal.

The British Uitlanders look upon the Transvaal as a huge field for mining operations, and it is reasonable to believe that if they had a preponderant voice in the legislation, they would use it for their own temporary interests and not for the permanent welfare of the country. The Boer attaches far more importance to the vote than we do in European communities. He looks upon it as the right of primogeniture of the Voortrekkers and their children, to be jealously guarded and not lightly shared with the new comer who might use it against him. Yet he does not shut out from his councils those

whom he can trust. When, after the Jameson raid, the two members of the Free State Volksraad, Fisher and Kleynveld, were sent to Pretoria, these were at once admitted to take a part in the deliberations of the Transvaal Executive. Loyalty is the crucial point on which the whole franchise question turns, and the hostile attitude which the reform leaders adopted prevented President Kruger making concessions.

For months and months [said the President in his proclamation to the Johannesburgers on the 11th of January] I have thought which alterations and emendations would be desirable in the government of this State, but the unwarrantable instigations, especially of the Press, have kept me back. The same men who now appear in public as the leaders have demanded amendments from me in a tone and manner which they would not have dared to use in their own country out of fear of the penal law. Through this it was made impossible to me and my burghers, the founders of this Republic, to take your proposals into consideration.

The President's distrust has been justified by the events. While the Reform leaders were clamouring about grievances and issuing their manifesto, they were secretly plotting in conjunction with the Prime Minister of the Cape to overthrow the Government. It is said in excuse of the Reform leaders that they did not wish to overthrow the republican form of government as such; but what matter the symbol when the reality is gone? Government by the Charter and the Gold Wolves' of the Rand would have been a curse to the burghers under any flag. When Mr. Rhodes was in England in the autumn of 1894, he said to those who were anxious about the future of the Transvaal, that the difficulties would be solved peacefully and naturally in the course of time, and he said the same to his friends in Africa. 'Education and time would remove the race prejudices that existed.' Had the Reform Union confined themselves to constitutional means for redress of any real grievances, his predictions would, no doubt, have been fulfilled. 'More than half the Johannesburg people, English as well as other foreigners, are against the revolutionary movement,' said the British agent in the South African Republic on the 31st of December, and will probably side with the Government in every way,' and it is now clear from letters that passed between the conspirators themselves, that the majority of the Johannesburg people did not care for political rights, and that, had they not been instigated to rebellion, they would have abided their time.

In the words of President Kruger :

Under the pretence of striving for political rights, a small number of designing men, within and without the country, have craftily worked upon the feelings of the poor deluded people of Johannesburg, and day by day fanned the flame of rebellion, and then, when in their folly they considered that the time had come, they caused a certain Dr. Jameson to cross the border of the Republic.

Mr. Rhodes had a splendid opportunity. All the Cape Afrikanders

looked upon him as their friend, and, with singleness of purpose, his dream of a united South Africa might have been realised, even though the flag of the early pioneers floated by the side of the Union Jack. But such dreams are idle now. What was the cause of Mr. Rhodes's change of policy? Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. The late events have changed the whole African situation. One result has been a strong re-awakening of the Dutch Afrikander sentiment. An electric shock of indignation ran through all Afrikanders from the Limpopo to the Cape. All differences between the Cape Colony and the Republic about tariffs, and the like, were forgotten, and it is now quite clear that if ever England wanted to revenge Majuba, there would be an end of her paramount power, although for the moment her arms might conquer. The paramount power cannot live by physical force alone, but by upholding right and justice. It has already received a rude shock. There was at first a strong suspicion that the British Government countenanced the revolution, and it is even now difficult to persuade Afrikanders of the contrary.

Are you now convinced [writes a distinguished Cape Afrikander] of the utter falsehood and cowardice of those who tried to coin out of minor grievances a revolution so as to take the Transvaal from its rightful owners. . . . If all the men and all the money England possesses were given at the present moment, it would not bring back the respect she has lost nor the love of just people here, and if ever England is to be looked upon as great here it will be only after she has had the moral courage to clear herself from complicity, and disavow this scandalous proceeding.

Dutch Afrikanders are too desperately in earnest to be satisfied with what appeared to them half-hearted disavowals, if not of the crime, at least of the criminals. By that light we must read the telegrams of the 19th of June from Pretoria.

Bitterness and distrust have been engendered between the English and Dutch in Africa. In the Free State a President with strong DutchAfrikander feelings has been elected as a direct consequence of the conspiracy. Both the Transvaal and Free State are arming in f defence. Natives are bewildered and rising on all sides, and they scarcely show that predilection for British rule with which they are always credited.

As for the alleged grievances, President Kruger will meet the demand for English education, and there is now a Bill before the Volksraad to give a municipality to Johannesburg; but it is needless to say that the franchise question has not been advanced by the treason of the Reform leaders, and the President will tolerate no dictation in the matter of the internal management of his country. It is too often forgotten here, where public opinion guides the policy of the Government, that President Kruger must take account of the feelings of his own people.

At the same time it is the wish of all who have the welfare of