e constant dropping of water will wear away stone,
so the constant fret of Boer treatment wore out the patience of
their victims!

It soon became very difficult for even sons of Uitlanders born in
the country to obtain the franchise. The naturalised subject
resigned his own nationality, and acquired the duties of the citizen
and the liability to be called on for military service, only to find
out that he could not even then enjoy the rights of the citizen. He
felt much as the dog in the fable, which let drop his piece of meat
for the sake of a reflection in the water. New laws and regulations
continually came into force for the ostensible purpose of improving
the state of the Uitlander--laws which in reality were created to
bamboozle him still further. What chicanery failed to accomplish the
remissness of officials successfully brought about, and the
discomfort of the foreign inhabitants was complete. Beside domestic
there were economic grievances. The position in a nutshell is given
by one of the unfortunates:--

"The one thing which we must have--not for its own sake, but for the
security it offers for obtaining and retaining other reforms--_is_
the franchise. No promise of reform, no reform itself will be worth
an hour's purchase unless we have the status of voters to make our
influence felt. But, if you want the chief economic grievances, they
are--the Netherland Railway concession, the dynamite monopoly, the
liquor traffic, and native labour, which, together, constitute an
unwarrantable burden of indirect taxation on the industry of _over
two and a half millions sterling annually_. We petitioned until we
were jeered at; we agitated until we--well--came here (Pretoria
Gaol); and we know that we shall get no remedy until we have the
vote to enforce it. We are not a political but a working community,
and if we were honestly and capably governed, the majority of us
would be content to wait for the franchise for a considerable time
yet in recognition of the peculiar circumstances and of the feelings
of the older inhabitants."

Mrs. Lionel Phillips, as the wife of an Uitlander, has also written
her plaint. She says:--

"To show that the grievances of the Uitlanders are indeed real, let
me call your attention to a few facts. What would women residing in
peaceful England say to the fact that one cannot take a walk out of
sight of one's own house in the suburbs of Johannesburg with safety?
The Kaffirs, who in other pa