Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/383

 1899.] Africa. — Transvaal. — Petitions. [375

the burghers regarded the military preparations as a menace to the Orange Free State the responsibility would not rest with the Bloemfontein Government; and that it would view with deep regret any disturbance of friendly relations with Great Britain. He would submit the telegram to the Volks- raad at once.

The Volksraad adopted a resolution instructing their Govern- ment to use every means to maintain peace, provided it be done without violating the honour and independence of the Free State and the Transvaal, but that, come what may, the Free State would "honestly and faithfully fulfil its obligation towards the Transvaal, by virtue of the political alliance existing between the two republics."

President Steyn issued a proclamation (Oct. 11) to the burghers of the Free State, calling upon them to assist the Transvaal. Martial law was proclaimed at Bloemfontein, the courts were closed, and all British subjects were warned to leave.

Transvaal. — Three years had passed since the Jameson raid, and still matters in the Transvaal were far from settlement. The Boers held the upper hand and were determined to keep it, while the Uitlanders complained of taxation without repre- sentation, and many other evils for which they held the Boers responsible.

Sundry inflammatory articles had appeared in the Band Post (a Boer newspaper) at the close of 1898 concerning the shooting of an Englishman named Edgar by a Boer policeman. Messrs. Webb and Dodds, of the South African League, were arrested for assisting in getting up a petition to the Queen concerning the Edgar tragedy. They were released on bail of 1,000Z. A public meeting of British subjects, held January 14, to protest against their arrest, was broken up by a vast rioting crowd of burghers and Afrikanders. The trial of these men was adjourned from January 19 to January 28. Finally both de- fendants were released in April, and the policeman who shot Edgar was discharged on February 25. All this caused much public excitement m Johannesburg and throughout the Trans- vaal.

It was not without some significance that a conference between Transvaal and Orange Free State delegates met at Pretoria, February 2, to discuss assimilation of the Constitutions of the two States.

A petition signed by 21,684 British subjects in the Transvaal was handed, March 24, to Mr. Conyngham Greene, the British Agent at Pretoria, to be forwarded to the Queen. In this peti- tion a statement in detail was given of the grievances of the Uitlanders. It prayed her Majesty to extend her protection to them, and to cause an inquiry into their grievances to be made, in order to reform abuses and to obtain from the Transvaal substantial guarantees for their redress. The petition was