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President Krueger is famous for employing clever and original similes in order to illustrate a policy as he wants his people to understand it.

It has already been noted that the Franchise Law of 1890 excluded Uitlanders from full burgher rights until after twenty-one years’ probation.  The reduction to seven years was proclaimed to be a concession to meet Mr. Chamberlain’s demand.  The simile, as addressed to the Volksraad and published in the journals, ran as follows:—­

“First my coat was demanded of me, which I gave; next were asked my boots, vest, and trousers.  I surrendered these as well; and now, as I stand in my bare shirt, my limbs are wanted besides.”

The people were thus led to be unanimous in the resolve to oppose any further concession, and to view Sir Alfred Milner’s unconditional insistence for a five years’ franchise as a conclusive proof that England in reality wanted no less than the country itself.  In this way the Boer mind was designedly fashioned into the conviction that war was inevitable, and that both President and people were absolved from all responsibility in it.  Had the offered franchise of seven years and the subsequent one of five years been honestly meant, there should, indeed, have been little difficulty for adjusting in the one case the difference of two years; but it being so surrounded by impossible trammels that what purported to be an egg proved more like a stone, and even that was not intended to be given, it was a mere subterfuge to gain time for carrying out Bond designs.

ALLIANCE OF ORANGE FREE STATE WITH TRANSVAAL—­SUZERAINTY SQUABBLE—­ARMAMENTS BEFORE JAMESON RAID

The project of alliance between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State had been mooted before 1890.  After that came conferences between the respective Presidents and delegates for closer union as it was then styled.  Mr. John G. Fraser, one of the noblest and most distinguished Orange Free State statesmen, was conspicuous among the few opponents.  His arguments against federation were so logical and conclusive that it seemed for a while that the idea would have to be renounced.  Among other grounds adduced against that alliance was the fact that England possessed claims of suzerainty over the Transvaal, and, the Orange Free State itself being entirely independent, the incongruity and incompatibility were obvious of joining a vassal State.  There was trouble if not danger lurking behind it, if such two States were to join in an actual federation.  Whatever was desirable for mutual advantage might be attained without offensive and defensive alliance.  The two Governments, however, knew how to manipulate matters.  The closer union scheme was carried through before the Jameson incursion, and soon after that event an offensive and defensive alliance completed the federation.  The Afrikaner Bond then had advanced another important stage.