dangerous tension and alienation from
the Government, instead of the peaceful co-operation so essential to
security and progress. In these days of advanced ideas of personal and
political liberty people will resist domination by a minority. They want
to be consulted, and to have at least the opportunity of making their
wishes known by means of representation. The right of petitioning could
not meet that need, and in fact implied the recognition of an inferior
status so repugnant to any one's sensibility. When people are ignored
they resent even light impositions and taxes, but if allowed a voice
will cheerfully submit to heavy burdens, because they then become, in a
manner, self-imposed. Representation is the panacea against popular
disaffection and for assuring governmental stability. To concede to
Uitlanders one-fifth of the seats in the Legislature could not operate
to the prejudice of burgher interests, but less would not meet the case.

It was, however, not President Krueger alone who had to decide--it
affected the Bond as a whole. The diplomatic contest so far proved just
the thing to ripen conditions for the meditated Bond _coup d'etat_. An
alternative offer of a seven years' franchise was interposed as a mere
ruse. Never for a moment did the Afrikaner Bond leaders waver or quail
in the face of resolute firmness, display of force, or even of moral
pressure and notes of advice from imposing quarters, as Mr. Chamberlain
had at first still fondly hoped. To the Bond it had all resolved itself
to a mere question of time, of choosing the most opportune moment when
to assume the aggressive. British attitude had only hastened the issue.
Mr. Jan Hofmeyer had indeed been sent for from the Cape so as to assure
that section of the Bond of Transvaal firmness, but he found no sign of
flinching or of renouncing the common object laboured for so long and
then so near fruition. The only difficulty was that British action had
hastened the issue somewhat too fast. Hence the repeated hurried visits
of the Bond leaders--Jan Hofmeyer, Abraham Fisher, and others--the
frequent caucus meetings of the Executive in consultation with those
delegates, the secret midnight sessions of the combined Volksraads and
Executive, the prolonged telegraphic conferences between the two
Presidents, and the final resulting word of "ready" which preceded the
fatal war ultimatum. The Gordian knot had been in evidence many years
ago; it is now recognised with