1 72 SOUTH AFRICA. 



previously to the war with Malabock, to which I 

 am now alluding, the Kaffirs had been able, or 

 wise enough, to have made their case a subject 

 of arbitration by disinterested judges, the Boer 

 claim of sovereignty over the greater part of the 

 Zoutpansberg district could not have been main- 

 tained. As it is, the Kaffirs have possibly 

 forfeited, or at least very much enfeebled, their 

 right to discuss the general question of ownership. 



Upon the whole, looking the fact in the face 

 that two-thirds of the revenue of the Transvaal 

 is raised by the oppressive taxation of resident 

 capitalists and others of the European races 

 (chiefly British), who are refused political rights, 

 and for many other reasons too numerous to go into 

 here, the life of this Republic, on its present footing 

 at least, is unlikely to be a prolonged one, especially 

 if the extension and consolidation of European 

 power and influence on the African continent is 

 to emerge from the tentative, and assume a 

 definite and permanent character. 



It is simply absurd that a little community of 

 the most narrow-minded and ignorant people on 

 the face of the earth should be allowed to occupy 

 a position giving them control over interests in 



