Page:The Transvaal war; a lecture delivered in the University of Cambridge on 9th November, 1899.djvu/29

 Then there was the claim of the franchise. Of course in no country are foreigners admitted to it. The claim of the franchise presupposed that there should be easy admission to naturalization because, the republics being states separate from the Queen's dominions, the characters of British subject and Transvaaler or Orange Free Stater could not be combined. No doubt the policy of the Transvaal government was most illiberal. After the discovery of gold was made and the Uitlanders began to flow in it passed laws the result of which was that, whereas at the date of the London Convention a person could obtain naturalization and the franchise together after five years* residence, under the new laws he could not get the latter in less than fourteen years, and then only if individually named in a resolution of the volksraad. No such length of residence is required in any other country that I know of But, again, in the convention there was nothing about the franchise. An attempt has been made to found that demand of the franchise on a promise said to have been made in 1 88 1, before the Convention of Pretoria. At that time there were commissioners engaged in treating with the Boer leaders as to the terms on which the restoration of the country should take place. At one meeting of those commissioners the chairman, Sir Hercules Robinson, now Lord Rosmead, asked: "Had British subjects free trade throughout the Transvaal before the annexation .?" Mr Kruger replied: "They were on the same footing as the burghers. There was not the slightest difference, in compliance with