maintaining the administration.  Beyond creating a lively interest, his success was confined to an agreement with a company in Holland for building a section of that railroad, which, however, fell through, because the Transvaal proved ultimately unable to furnish its quota of the necessary funds.  The present President fared better.  A Dutch company styled “The Nederlandsch Zuid Afrikaansche Spoorweg Maatschappy,” abbreviated “Z.A.S.M.,” undertook the work and completed it in 1887, from the Portuguese border to Pretoria.  The line from Pretoria to the Natal border was soon after built, as also several extensions around the Wit-waters Rand, and that from Pretoria to Pietersburg.  The section connecting Delagoa Bay as far as the Transvaal border had previously been completed by McMurdo, and is the subject of the present Berne arbitration.[2]

The contract conferred to the Dutch Company a monopoly, and most advantageous financial terms as well.  By that time great strides had been made in the development of the Transvaal gold-fields, especially at the Wit-waters Rand (Johannesburg); and immigration on a large scale from all parts of the world had set in, and was constantly increasing with vast amounts of investments in mercantile and other enterprises, as well as in mining industries.  At first, equitable laws governed burghers and Uitlanders alike, administered by an independent judiciary.  All desirable security was afforded for person and property, with confidence in the safety of investments, and great general prosperity kept pace with ever-increasing activities and enterprise.

It was a great satisfaction to Uitlanders that the peace of 1881, and the reinstatement of Transvaal independence, had restored harmony between Boer and English, and that a policy was being followed to preclude friction between the respective Governments.  Those facts largely stimulated investments and enhanced confidence.  By 1887 the alien population had already exceeded 100,000, and the capital investments L200,000,000 sterling, and the desire so ardently entertained by the people of the land, for twenty years back, was gratified at last.  The burghers shared in the prosperity to a very large degree, and in lieu of former poverty, competence and wealth became the rule, and many of them became exceedingly rich.  It was not unusual to hear Boers expressing undisguised gratitude, not merely for the natural gold deposits, but specially also that people had come to prospect and to invest capital, without which the wealth of the land would have remained unexploited and lain fallow.  Harmony and cordiality were the proper outcome between foreigners and Boers.  The influx of capital and of immigrants continued to increase, but not so the happy conditions.  These were gradually getting marred by a spirit of variance, no one seemed to know how.  The study of this paper will reveal it.  The variance between Boers and Uitlanders began to be specially discernible from 1887 and had been increasing like a blight ever since.  This was noticeably coincident with the numerous arrivals of educated Hollanders employed for the railways and the Government administration.