Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/637

 1899.] STATE PAPERS— TRANSVAAL. 213

High Commissioner's request was made after the issue by President Kruger of a proclamation in which he stated: "And I further make known that the Government is still always ready to consider properly all grievances which are laid before it in a proper manner, and to lay them before the Legislature of the country without delay to be dealt with." Unfortunately, the assurances conveyed in this proclamation have been no better observed than the assurances of 1881. Not only have no adequate or genuine reforms been introduced up to the present time, but the conditions and the general atmosphere in which the Out- landers have to live have become more difficult and irksome to free and civilised men. Fresh legislation has been passed in a repressive and reactionary direction, and the administration of justice itself has been made subservient to the control of the Executive Government.

Her Majesty's Government believed that the acceptance of the invitation to the Bloemfontein Conference by President Kruger was an indication that the Government of the South African Republic were prepared to make adequate proposals for the remedy of the just com- plaints of the Outlander population resident in the Transvaal. But the proposals actually made by him during the course of the proceedings were not such as could in any way be accepted as meeting the case.

Her Majesty's Government have approved of your having put in the foreground the grant of such a measure of reform as would give the Outlanders at once a reasonable share of political power, for although even if such privileges were fairly and fully conceded, there would remain many causes of difference between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the South African Republic, still such a conces- sion would afford the Outlanders an opportunity of formulating their grievances and influencing the legislators and the Government of the country in which they live, and eventually it would doubtless secure the gradual redress of those grievances without the necessity of appeal- ing to any external power. It would thus go a long way to remove the tension and discontent which endanger the tranquillity of the Republic and the peace of South Africa.

Her Majesty's Government have also observed with approval that in view of the refusal of the President to grant any effective share in the government of the country to the Outlanders, you pressed upon him, as a proposal not open to any of the objections urged by him to the grant of a liberal franchise, the possibility of providing an alleviation for the grievances of the Outlanders by granting to them such a municipal government for Johannesburg and the goldfieids as would be for them a municipal government in reality as well as in name. At present all matters of municipal concern, which affect so closely the comfort and health and contentment of a European population, are regulated by officials who do not understand European require- ments, who have no sympathy with municipal life as understood in Europe or in the United States, and who, as a matter of fact, conduct the municipal government of Johannesburg with conspicuous ineffici- ency. Her Majesty's Government noted with regret that in this matter also President Kruger declined to entertain your suggestions. They have never been able to comprehend the reasons which make President