THE REVOLT OF THE lUTLANDERS 
361 
the English and American residents were attached to the Trans- 
vaal in the sense of regarding it as a permanent home. Most of 
them meant or hoj)ed to return to Europe or America, and it is 
}>robable that even had tlie full franchise been obtainable after 
live years’ residence, few Anglo-Saxons would have abjured 
allegiance to England or the United States.* It was for business 
purposes that they desired a voice in puldic affairs, and few of 
them realized that, to the Boers, granting the franchise seemed 
equivalent to self-destruction. 
So far as I can learn, the great mistake of the Boers was in 
giving the Uitlanders grave cause for desiring to control the 
legislation affecting them and the industiw the}' had built up. 
The Uitlanders could have been quieted by judicious consid- 
eration for their convenience, Avithout the franchise and with- 
out danger to the independence or the national character of the 
rejAuhlic. A prosperous community like that of the Rand Avould 
bear extremely heavy taxation Avith little murmuring; but a 
prosperous and energetic community is the very last to submit 
patiently to discomfort, favoritism, and maladministration be- 
yond its OAvn control. 
The grievances of the Uitlanders have been very real indeed, 
and the foreigner on the Rand has not been alloAved to forget for 
an hour at a time that he Avas a member of an ill-governed com- 
munity. A feAV facts Avill illustrate this condition. The toAvn of 
Johannesburg, though containing over 50,000 Avhite inhabitants, 
has no perfected system of lighting, no system of drainage, and 
no general Avater supply. There is abundance of Avater in the 
neighborhood, but the laAV of riparian rights, being framed for a 
purely agricultural population, is such that no Avater rights can 
be acquired if a single affected landoAvner objects. The toAA-n 
has no general municipal government, though there is a board 
of health. The state has refused until lately to aid education, 
except Avhen conducted in Dutch. Public meetings of more than 
six ])ersons may l;e dispersed at the di.scretion of the police. The 
charges of the Netherlands Railway Company are entirely un- 
controlled by laAA', and on a })ortion of its line its tariff reaches 
the utterly exorbitant rate of six cents }>er ton ))cr mile on coal. 
The company makes ])rolits of 100 per cent, and yet it is not 
taken over by the state, Avhich has the legal right to assume its 
OAvnership. No dynamite is made in the Transvaal, yet a mo- 
* It if) prolinble tiint ti eonf)i<lerable number of AfricnmlerH woiibl iintiirulize if tlie 
condition)) were not too onerous. The Burghers, iiowever, dread the influence of the 
" EiiKliah-minded ” Africander. 
