was equally present and prompted the sense and conditions of that very convention of 1881, which the people were subsequently dissatisfied with and in their own wisdom sacrificed for that of 1884.  It is just possible that that presumptuous act of wanting to improve upon the Lord’s work will result in trouble and prove to our sorrow that we have simply tampered and tinkered with a good thing and spoilt it to our hurt.

“’Thou shalt not provoke thy children to wrath lest they be discouraged and be tempted to do evil,’ applies specially also to the duties of Governments.  Our rulers need wisdom in this direction, and will be responsible if our strangers are subjected to unfair laws.  The older people here will call to mind, when the old voortrekkers were obliged to go hundreds of miles, as far as Pietermaritzburg, for their supplies, that we prayed for shopkeepers in our land so that we might be spared those long journeys.  What was done soon after we had attracted strangers to establish businesses with us?  We were seduced to deliberately attempt their ruin by starting those nationale Boerenwinkels (national Boer stores), supported by our own capital, but governed by Hollanders who eventually squandered our money.  Was that dealing fairly by confiding strangers?  Later on, again in response to our prayers, we got railways; skilled men and much capital from foreign countries, first to prospect for gold and then to develop and exploit the mines.  Their labour and hard-earned money were risked when the return was still problematic.  Shall we begrudge them their successes now, seeing that our whole land is equally enriched at the same time, and but for them and their enterprise the gold would still be lying uselessly hidden in the depths of the ground?  There are now, in 1890, over 100,000 such strangers in the land, and probably over 200 millions capital invested.  Shall they be treated in a manner to justify the accusation that they were inveigled into our land with the object of despoiling them afterwards after the style of ‘Come into my parlour, says the spider to the fly’?  These people count upon our honest friendship, especially the many English among them who ground that confidence upon the honourable peace accorded us in 1881.  Shall we deceive them?  May we hate them for old questions which that peace was intended to bury for ever?  Think of the Lord’s dealings with our people—­poor, wandering, and despised at first.  He had blessings in store for the tried voortrekkers and their children.  ’The beggar was raised from the dunghill [asch-hoop, i.e., ash-heap, was the word he used] to sit with princes’—­’a table laid for us in the sight of our enemies.’  All this is literally fulfilled.  Our President and others representing us have been to Europe and sat with princes, and we have a country full of riches enough to make any enemy to rage with jealousy at the sight.  Who else but the devil is that enemy?  It is he who persecuted our Dutch and Huguenot ancestors