easure. So far back as 1894 the Chief Justice, a man greatly
respected for his abilities and his services to the State, had delivered
a public address warning the people against the dangers which threatened
them from neglect of the provisions of the constitution. Whether this
party of opposition among the enfranchised citizens would have aided the
Reform movement was doubtful. They would certainly not have done so had
the British flag been raised. But if the movement had sought only the
destruction of Hollander influence and the redress of grievances, they
would at any rate have refused to join in resisting it.

"Why," it may be asked--"why, under these circumstances, with so many
open enemies, and so many wavering supporters, did not President Kruger
bow to the storm and avert revolt by reasonable concessions?" He had not
a friend in the world except Germany, which had gone out of her way to
offer him sympathy. But Germany was distant, and he had no seaport. The
people of the Orange Free State had been ready to help the Transvaal in
1881, and from among the Boers of Cape Colony there might in the crisis
of that year have come substantial succour. But both the Free State and
the Cape Boers had been alienated by the unfriendly attitude of the
President in commercial matters and by his refusal to employ Cape
Dutchmen in the Transvaal service. The annoyance of these kindred
communities had been very recently accentuated by a dispute about the
drifts (_i.e._, fords where waggons cross) on the Orange River. It was
therefore improbable that any help could be obtained from outside
against a purely internal movement, which aimed solely at reform, and
did not threaten the life of the Republic.

The answer to the question just put is to be found not so much in the
material interests as in the sentiments of the old Boer party. They
extended their hatred of the English, or rather perhaps of the British
Government, to the English-speaking Uitlanders generally, and saw in the
whole movement nothing but an English plot. If the President had cared
to distinguish, he might have perceived that the capitalists cared, not
for the franchise, but for the success of their mines; and he might, by
abolishing the wasteful concessions,--which did not even enrich the
State, but only the objects of its ill-directed bounty,--by reducing the
tariff, and by keeping drink from the blacks, have disarmed the
hostility of the mine owners, and have had onl