The Rev. John H. Bovill, Rector of the Cathedral Church, Lorenco Marquez, and sometime Her Majesty’s Acting Consul there, has worked for five years in a district from which numbers of natives were drawn for work in the Transvaal, has visited the Transvaal from time to time, and is well acquainted with Boers of all classes and occupations.  He has given us some details of the working out—­especially as regards the natives—­of the principles of the Grondwet or Constitution of the Transvaal.

To us English, the most astonishing feature, to begin with, of this Constitution, is that it places the power of the Judiciary below that of the Raad or Legislative Body.  The Judges of the Highest Court of Law are not free to give judgment according to evidence before them and the light given to them.  A vote of the Raad, consisting of a mere handful of men in secret sitting, can at any time override and annul a sentence of the High Court.

This will perhaps be better understood if we picture to ourselves some great trial before Lord Russell and others of our eminent judges, in which any laws bearing on the case were carefully tested in connection with the principles of our Constitution; that this supreme Court had pronounced its verdict, and that the next day Parliament should discuss, with closed doors, the verdict of the judges, and by a vote or resolution, should declare it unjust and annul it.

Let us imagine, to follow the matter a little further on the lines of Transvaal justice, that our Sovereign had power to dismiss at will from office any judge or judges who might have exercised independence of judgment and pronounced a verdict displeasing to Parliament or to herself personally!  Such is law and justice in the Transvaal; and that country is called a Republic!  “This is Transvaal justice,” says M. Naville; “a mockery, an ingenious legalizing of tyranny.  There are no laws, there are only the caprices of the Raad.  A vote in a secret sitting, that is what binds the Judges, and according to it they will administer justice.  The law of to-day will perhaps not be the law to-morrow.  The fifteen members of the majority, or rather President Kruger, who influences their votes, may change their opinion from one day to the next—­it matters not; their opinion, formulated by a vote, will always be law.  Woe to the judge who should dare to mention the Constitution or the Code, for there is one:  he would at once be dismissed by the President who appointed him.”

It was prescribed by the Grondwet that no new law should be passed by Parliament (the Volksraad) unless notice of it had been given three months in advance, and the people had had the opportunity to pronounce upon it.  This did not suit the President; accordingly when desirous of legalizing some new project of his own, he adopted the plan of bringing in such project as an addition or amendment to some existing law, giving it out as no new law, but only a supplementary