THE BOER OF TO-DAY. 345 



the British flag in 1877, or soon after, and having 

 once come wilHngly they would have remained for 

 ever British subjects. I was conversing not long 

 since with a Dutch gentleman, formerly holding 

 office in the Transvaal Volksraad before 1877, who 

 assured me that if President Burgers had not been 

 in such desperate haste to quit the sinking ship of 

 the Transvaal State, and to secure the British 

 pension he afterwards enjoyed, and that if Sir T. 

 Shepstone had only waited six months longer, the 

 ruin of the bankrupt Republic would have been 

 complete, and all the inhabitants would have freely 

 and gladly placed themselves under British rule. 

 Britannia seized the plum before it was yet quite 

 ripe ; in another few months it would have fallen 

 into her mouth. But since 1877 many things have 

 happened. By the war of 1880-81, the pride and 

 enthusiasm of the Transvaalers have been increased 

 a thousand-fold. 



The opening up of the gold-fields, and the influx 

 of the mining element, have placed the exchequer of 

 the new Republic far beyond the sordid cares and 

 troubles that formerly beset it, and it is, in my 

 judgment, in the last degree improbable that the 

 sturdy Transvaal Boers will ever bow the knee to 

 Germany ; I believe, rather, that if put to extremity, 

 they would range themselves with the British. The 

 success of the Republic is now assured, but looking 

 at the enormous increase of the British element 

 there — in the next few years to be still more 

 recruited — looking at the approach of railways 

 through the Free State and Bechuanaland (now 

 going steadily forward), and the wonderful changes, 

 in every instance favourable to British interests, 



