Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/271

 have not scrupled to make for themselves such a law of exclusion will willingly join themselves to a nationality which is absolutely and vehemently opposed to any exclusion based on colour.

In the Free State the executive power is in the hands of the President in which he is assisted by a Council of five, of whom two are official. There is now a bench of three judges who go circuit, and there is a magistrate or Landroost sitting in each of the thirteen districts and deciding both civil and criminal cases to a certain extent. The religion and education of the State will both require a few words from me, but they will come better when I am speaking of Bloemfontein, the capital.

The Revenue of the country is something over £100,000 a year, and the expenditure has for many years been kept within the Revenue. It has been very fluctuating, having sunk below £60,000 in 1859 when the war with the Basutos had crippled all the industries of the country and had forced the burghers to spend their time in fighting instead of cultivating their lands and looking after their sheep. There is nothing, however, that the Boer hates so much as debt, and the Boer of the Volksraad has been very careful to free his country from that incubus.

Land in the Orange Free State is very cheap, an evil condition of things which has been produced by the large grants of land which were made to the original claimants. The average value throughout the State may now be fixed at about 5s. an acre. It is said that in the whole State there are between six and seven thousand farms.