were everywhere in the best social relations. The old blood sympathy of the Dutch element for the Transvaal Boers which had been so strongly manifested in 1881, when the latter were struggling for their independence, had been superseded, or at least thrown into the background, by displeasure at the unneighbourly policy of the Transvaal Government in refusing public employment to Cape Dutchmen as well as to Englishmen, and in throwing obstacles in the way of trade in agricultural products. This displeasure culminated when the Transvaal Government, in the summer of 1895, closed the Drifts (fords) on the Vaal River, to the detriment of imports from the Colony and the Orange Free State.

In the Orange Free State there was, as has been pointed out in Chapter XIX., perfect good feeling and cordial co-operation in all public matters between the Dutch and the English elements. There was also perfect friendliness to Britain, the old grievances of the Diamond Fields dispute (see page 144) and of the arrest of the Free State conquest of Basutoland having been virtually forgotten. Towards the Transvaal there was a political sympathy based partly on kinship, partly on a similarity of republican institutions. But there was also some annoyance at the policy which the Transvaal Government, and especially its Hollander advisers, were pursuing; coupled with a desire to see reforms effected in the Transvaal, and the franchise granted to immigrants on more liberal terms.

Of the Transvaal itself I need say the less, because its condition is fully described in Chapter XXV. There was of course much irritation among the Uitlanders of English and Colonial stock, with an arrogant refusal on the part of the ruling section and the more extreme old-fashioned Boers to admit the claims of these new-comers. But there was also a party among the burghers, important more by the character and ability of its members than by its numbers, yet growing in influence, which desired reform, perceived that the existing state of things could not continue, and was ready to join the Uitlanders in agitating for sweeping changes in the Constitution and in administration.

The events of December, 1895, changed the face of things swiftly and decisively in all these communities.

In Cape Colony Dutch feeling, which as a political force was almost expiring, revived at once. The unexpected attack on the Transvaal evolved an outburst of sympathy for it, in which the faults of its government were forgotten. Mr. Rhodes retired from office. The reconstructed Ministry which succeeded fell in 1898, and a new Ministry supported by the Africander Bond came into power after a general election. Its majority was narrow, and was accused of not fairly representing the country, owing to the nature of the electoral areas. A Redistribution Bill was passed by a species of compromise, and in the elections to the new constituencies which followed the Dutch party slightly increased its majority, and kept its Cabinet (in which, however, men of Dutch blood are a minority) in power. Party feeling, both inside and outside the legislature, became, and has remained, extremely strong on both sides. The English generally have rallied to and acclaim Mr. Rhodes, whose connection with Dr. Jameson's expedition has made him the special object of Dutch hostility. There is, according to the reports which reach England, no longer any moderating third party: all are violent partisans. Nevertheless—and this is a remarkable and most encouraging fact—this violence did not diminish the warmth with which the whole Assembly testified its loyalty and affection towards the Queen on the occasion of the completion of the sixtieth year of her reign in 1897. And the Bond Ministry of Mr. Schreiner proposed and carried by a unanimous vote a grant of £30,000 per annum as a contribution by the Colony to the naval defence of the Empire, leaving the application of this sum to the unfettered discretion of the British Admiralty.

In the Orange Free State the explosion of Dutch sentiment was still stronger. Its first result was seen in the election of a President. In November, 1895, two candidates for the vacant office had come forward, and their chances were deemed to be nearly equal. When the news of the Jameson expedition was received, the chance of the candidate of British stock vanished. Since then, though there was not (so far as I gather) down till the last few weeks any indication of hostility to Britain, much less any social friction within the State, a disposition to draw closer to the threatened sister Republic showed itself at once. This led to the conclusion of a defensive alliance between the Free State and the Transvaal, whereby either bound itself to defend the other, if unjustly attacked. (The Transvaal is believed to have suggested, and the Free State to have refused, a still closer union.) As the Orange Free State had no reason to fear an attack, just or unjust, from any quarter, this was a voluntary undertaking on its part, with no corresponding advantage, of what might prove a dangerous liability, and it furnishes a signal proof of the love of independence which animates this little community.

We come now to the Transvaal itself. In that State the burgher party of constitutional reform was at once silenced, and its prospect of usefulness blighted. So, too, the Uitlander agitation was extinguished. The Reform leaders were in prison or in exile. The passionate anti-English feeling, and the dogged refusal to consider reforms, which had characterized the extreme party among the Boers, were intensified. The influence of President Kruger, more than once threatened in the years immediately preceding, was immensely strengthened.

The President and his advisers had a golden opportunity before them of using the credit and power which the failure of the Rising and the Expedition of 1895 had given them. They ought to have seen that magnanimity would also be wisdom. They ought to have set about a reform of the administration and to have proposed a moderate enlargement of the franchise such as would have admitted enough of the new settlers to give them a voice, yet not enough to involve any sudden transfer of legislative or executive power. Whether the sentiment of the Boers generally would have enabled the President to extend the franchise may be doubtful; but he could at any rate have tried to deal with the more flagrant abuses of administration. However, he attempted neither. The abuses remained, and though a Commission reported on some of them, and suggested important reforms, no action was taken. The weak point of the Constitution (as to which see p. 152) was the power which the legislature apparently possessed of interfering with vested rights, and even with pending suits, by a resolution having the force of law. This was a defect due, not to any desire to do wrong, but to the inexperience of those who had originally framed the Constitution, and to the want of legal knowledge and skill among those who had worked it, and was aggravated by the fact that the legislature consisted of one Chamber only, which was naturally led to legislate by way of resolution (besluit) because the process of passing laws in the stricter sense of the term involved a tedious and cumbrous process of bringing them to the knowledge of the people throughout the country. Upon this point there arose a dispute with the Chief