in a more unsatisfactory condition. It was abundantly clear that
the time had been allowed to pass when the Imperial Government might
have insisted upon reforms and the fulfilment of the President's
promises--not in the spirit in which they had been made, but in the
spirit in which the President himself had intended the world to
construe them. The impact of the revelations was too great to permit
of public judgment quickly recovering its balance. It was realized
that Mr. Kruger's effects had been admirably stage-managed and that
for the time being, and possibly for a very considerable time, the
Uitlanders were completely out of court. There were a few--but how
few!--whose faith was great and whose conviction that the truth must
prevail was abiding, who realized that there was nothing for it but
to begin all over again--to begin and to persevere upon sound lines;
and they took heart of such signs as there were and started afresh.

It has been an article of faith with them that Mr. Kruger missed
his supreme chance at the time of the trial of the Reformers, and
that from the date of the death-sentence his judgment and his luck
have failed him. He abused his good fortune and the luck turned, so
they say; and the events of the last three years go to support that
impression. To his most faithful ally amongst the Uitlanders the
President, in the latter days of 1896, commented adversely upon the
ingratitude of those Reformers who had not called to thank him for
his magnanimity; and this man replied: 'You must stop talking about
that, President, because people are laughing at you. You made a
bargain with them and they paid the price you asked, so now they owe
you nothing.' But his Honour angrily repudiated that construction:
nothing will convert him to that view.

It has been said that Dr. Jameson is the best friend Paul Kruger ever
had, and with equal truth it may be said that, in 1896, President
Kruger proved himself to be the best friend of the Reformers. Not
even the most sanguine of his enemies could have expected to witness
the impolitic and unjust acts by which the President revealed
himself, vindicated the Reformers, and undermined a position of
unparalleled strength in an incredibly short time. The bargaining and
the bad grace which marked the release of the Reformers had prepared
the world to view Mr. Kruger's action and attitude a little more
critically than it had hitherto been disposed to do. The real
conditions o