CAPE COLONY AND SOUTH AFRICA. 



119 



ored to force upon the children of Uitlanders 

 the habitual use of the Dutch language; which 

 had retained the right of veto over the acts of 

 the Johannesburg Municipal Council, and had 

 denied a limited form of self-government to the 

 gold-mining industry and commercial firms; 

 which neglected to enforce the liquor law, though 

 the police had brutally treated colored British 

 subjects when arresting them for being without 

 passes; which by the press laws of 1800 and 

 1898 threatened that freedom of the expression 

 of opinion which was guaranteed by the Consti- 

 tution, as these empower the President, with the 

 consent of the Executive Council, to prohibit 

 the circulation of printed matter deemed con- 

 trary to good morals or a danger to the peace 

 and order of the republic; which under the aliens' 

 expulsion law has power to expel aliens alleged 

 to have incited disobedience of the law or acted 

 in a manner dangerous to public peace and 

 order, while burghers, who can not be banished, 

 may have a special place of residence assigned 

 to them; and which by the law of 1897 instructs 

 the President to dismiss any judge who refuses 

 to recognize resolutions of the Volksraad as 

 having the force of law, consequently confirm- 

 ing the power of the Volksraad to amend laws 

 by a mere resolution and placing the highest 

 court of justice at the mercy of the Executive. 

 The Uitlanders, being for the most part British 

 subjects, accustomed to the exercise of full po- 

 litical as well as municipal rights, had for a 

 long time been striving to obtain an ameliora- 

 tion of their condition prior to the disturbances 

 of 1895, and since then, in spite of the promise 

 of President Kriiger to submit to the Legisla- 

 ture all complaints properly presented to him, 

 no substantial measures of reform had been 

 passed ; the action of the Executive, on the whole, 

 had the effect of increasing rather than of re- 

 moving the causes of complaint. Having regard 

 to the position of Great Britain as the para- 

 mount power in South Africa, and its duty to 

 protect all British subjects residing in a foreign 

 country, the British Government could not per- 

 manently ignore the exceptional and arbitrary 

 treatment to which British subjects and others 

 are exposed and the indifference of the Govern- 

 ment of the republic to friendly representations 

 made to it on the subject. Mr. Chamberlain pro- 

 posed that a meeting be held at Pretoria be- 

 tween the President and the High Commissioner 

 for the purpose of discussing the situation in a 

 conciliatory spirit, in the hope that an arrange- 

 ment might be made which the British Govern- 

 ment could accept and recommend to the Uit- 

 lander population as a reasonable concession to 

 their just demands and the settlement of the 

 difficulties that threatened the good relations 

 between Great Britain and the South African 

 Republic. Mr. Hofmeyer and Mr. Schreiner, the 

 leaders of the Afrikander party at the Cape, at 

 the very same time conceived the idea of a con- 

 ference between the High Commissioner and the 

 President, to be held neither in Cape Colony nor 

 at Pretoria, but at Bloemfontein, and suggested 

 it to President Steyn, of the Orange Free State, 

 who sounded President Kriiger, and found him 

 willing. Sir Alfred Milner was willing too, pro- 

 vided it was first made clear on what under- 

 standing the meeting should be founded. In 

 accepting the invitation he expressed the hope 

 of arriving at a satisfactory settlement of the 

 situation which the British Government could 

 accept and recommend to *the Uitlanders as a 

 reasonable concession to their just demands. 

 Although Sir Alfred Milner's acceptance was ex- 



pressed in terms that went further than Presi- 

 dent Kriiger's intention, he also accepted, de- 

 claring that he would gladly discuss every pro- 

 posal conducing to a good understanding with 

 England, provided that the independence of the 

 Transvaal was not impugned. The answer of 

 the British Government to the Uitlanders' peti- 

 tion also declared the expectation that the con- 

 ference would result in a solution which should 

 satisfy the reasonable aspirations of the unen- 

 franchised. 



When the Volksraad assembled on May 1 a 

 new franchise proposal of President Kriiger was 

 submitted. Any male stranger who has com- 

 mitted no crime against the independence of the 

 state, who possesses real property worth 150 

 or draws a salary of 100, or makes an inde- 

 pendent living by farming or cattle breeding, and 

 who declares his intention on arriving of perma- 

 nently residing in the country or obtains natural- 

 ization after two years' residence, would have full 

 burgher rights, except the right to vote for the 

 President, nine years after his arrival, on con- 

 dition of his forswearing allegiance to any other 

 government; and those already resident in the 

 country for nine years could obtain the franchise 

 after two years, while others already naturalized 

 would have to wait only five years. The Rand 

 was to be given 4 additional members. Of the 

 28 members of the First Raad, 19 are elected in 

 16 districts in which there are no foreigners or 

 very few, 5 in 3 districts where the Uitlander 

 element is strong but not predominant, and 4 in 

 the Uitlander districts of Barberton, Heidelberg, 

 Kriigersdorp, and Johannesburg, which have a 

 male population of 81,000, but only 4,000 voters 

 on the roll, whereas 13 purely Boer districts, with 

 a total male population of 35,000 and a voting 

 roll of 12,000, send 16 members to the Raad. The 

 demand of the Uitlanders was for immediate en- 

 franchisement and an increase in the representa- 

 tion of their districts by at least 5 members. 



While the franchise proposals of the President 

 met with strong opposition on the part of the 

 old burghers, they found no favor with the Uit- 

 landers, who demanded British intervention. As 

 these became more and more obstreperous, the 

 party favorable to the Government among the 

 Uitlander workingmen also gathered strength. 

 There was yet a prospect of an alliance between 

 the Government and the mine owners, who depre- 

 cated political agitation on account of its effect 

 on business, when Mr. Chamberlain's menacing 

 dispatch arrived. On May 16 the Transvaal po- 

 lice arrested on charges of high treason Richard 

 Floyd Nicholls, George Patterson, Charles Agar 

 Ellis, John Allen Mitchell, Edward James Trem- 

 lett, Robert Poole Hooper, and Jens Fries, most 

 of them reported to be commissioned officers in 

 the British army, and in fact they w r ere ex-sol- 

 diers, though only one or two had held commis- 

 sions. Excepting two, who were informers, they 

 were ringleaders in a plot either to seize the 

 new fort at Johannesburg with arms obtained 

 in Natal or to destroy it with dynamite, and 

 about 2,000 persons were said to have engaged 

 in the conspiracy, of which the Government had 

 been aware for four months. The fort was gar- 

 risoned just previous to the arrests. 



The conference between Sir Alfred Milner and 

 President Kriiger lasted from May 31 till June 

 5. Sir Alfred Milner proposed that the full fran- 

 chise should be given to every foreigner who had 

 been resident in the Transvaal for five years, 

 declared his intention to reside there permanent- 

 ly, and took an oath to obey the laws, under- 

 take all obligations of citizenship, and defend 



