Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/83

 1899.] The Transvaal Questionr^c/ /'{75

the property and maintained at the cost of the German Govern- ment, which would keep up the company's wires at the cost of the company. At the end of forty years the German Govern- ment could take over the line without compensation of any kind. Mr. Ehodes expressed himself highly satisfied with the result of his negotiations, and highly gratified by the reception he had met with.

Almost simultaneously came from South Africa mutterings of an approaching storm which Mr. Ehodes had done something to provoke. The Transvaal Government had gone out of its way since the raid to show its dislike and distrust of the Outlanders, on whose behalf and possibly at whose instigation the unfortunate expedition was undertaken. The promises made at the time, when the Boers would have been taken unprepared for a serious uprising, had never been fulfilled. Additional burdens had been imposed upon the gold industry, from which the Transvaal Government drew large sums, which were spent in arms and armaments in view of future complica- tions. Complaints as to the treatment of the Outlanders arrived from time to time, but the British Government recog- nising that the Boers had a reasonable grievance against men, whom, rightly or wrongly, they regarded as implicated in Mr. Rhodes's schemes, had shown every desire to postpone pressing their demands, and had endeavoured to calm the growing ex- citement. The Outlanders, either of their own motion, or, as was alleged, stirred up by the mine owners and capitalists, who were the objects of every form of taxation, at length determined to take united action. A petition signed, as it was stated, by 21,000 British subjects in the Transvaal, was for- warded to the Queen. The Boer Press and the Boer authorities at once declared that a great proportion of the signatures were fictitious and that the petition had been got up by a small body of disaffected persons, but there was very little support forth- coming of either charge. The petition rehearsed the regular Outlander grievances, noting that the promises of redress had not only not been kept, but that since they were made the position of the Outlanders became worse. For example, the Baad had passed a Press law giving the President arbitrary powers, and an Aliens' Expulsion law permitting the expulsion of British aliens at the will of the President, without, as in the case of the burghers, an appeal to the High Court; and the municipality granted to Johannesburg was declared to be worthless. " Half of the councillors are necessarily burghers, though the burghers and Outlanders number 1,000 and 23,000 respectively. The Government rejected the report of the Industrial Commission, which was composed of its own officials.' ' The High Court had been reduced to a condition of subservience, and the police, exclusively burghers, were ignorant and prejudiced, and a danger to the community. " Jurors are necessarily burghers, and justice is impossible in cases where a