ive Council and a very prominent
Afrikander Bondsman, with the proposition that Great Britain should be
pushed out of South Africa. The same politician made the same proposal
to Mr. Beit. Compare with this the following statement of Mr. Theodore
Schreiner, the brother of the Prime Minister of the Cape:

'I met Mr. Reitz, then a judge of the Orange Free State, in Bloemfontein
between seventeen and eighteen years ago, shortly after the retrocession
of the Transvaal, and when he was busy establishing the Afrikander Bond.
It must be patent to every one that at that time, at all events, England
and its Government had no intention of taking away the independence of
the Transvaal, for she had just "magnanimously" granted the same; no
intention of making war on the republics, for she had just made peace;
no intention to seize the Rand gold fields, for they were not yet
discovered. At that time, then, I met Mr. Reitz, and he did his best to
get me to become a member of his Afrikander Bond, but, after studying
its constitution and programme, I refused to do so, whereupon the
following colloquy in substance took place between us, which has been
indelibly imprinted on my mind ever since:

'REITZ: Why do you refuse? Is the object of getting the people to take
an interest in political matters not a good one?

'MYSELF: Yes, it is; but I seem to see plainly here between the lines of
this constitution much more ultimately aimed at than that.

'REITZ: What?

'MYSELF: I see quite clearly that the ultimate object aimed at is the
overthrow of the British power and the expulsion of the British flag
from South Africa.

'REITZ (with his pleasant conscious smile, as of one whose secret
thought and purpose had been discovered, and who was not altogether
displeased that such was the case): Well, what if it is so?

'MYSELF: You don't suppose, do you, that that flag is going to disappear
from South Africa without a tremendous struggle and fight?

'REITZ (with the same pleasant self-conscious, self satisfied, and yet
semi-apologetic smile): Well, I suppose not; but even so, what of that?

'MYSELF: Only this, that when that struggle takes place you and I will
be on opposite sides; and what is more, the God who was on the side of
the Transvaal in the late war, because it had right on its side will
be on the side of England, because He must view with abhorrence any
plotting and scheming to overthrow her power and position in South
Africa, whi