rendered valuable—­but perhaps injudicious and unjudicial—­service, as already sufficiently described; the treatment of Dr. Coster, the State Attorney, who also deserved better of the President; the public repudiation of Mr. J.B.  Robinson, whose friendship for President Kruger had been frequently and amply evidenced to the grave dissatisfaction of the Uitlander population; the public and insulting repudiation of Sir Henry de Villiers, the Chief Justice of Cape Colony, after he had served his purpose!  The result of any such inquiry must confirm the conclusion that ‘something for nothing’ is the President’s policy and achievement.

A policy or a movement which is to involve the cooperation of thousands of intelligent men cannot be carried out upon such terms, and this may be regarded as the main reason why the spirit of Republicanism did not generally itself develop under circumstances apparently so favourable to it.  The President’s policy may be considered astute or unwise according to the point of view from which it is regarded.  Viewed from the standpoint of the State itself, undoubtedly it fails lamentably in statesmanship.  In the interests of the Boer party, however, or of the man Paul Kruger, it may well be doubted whether the policy may not be a token of remarkable sagacity.  He knows his own limitations and the limitations of his people.  He knows that to freely admit to a share in the Government a number of intelligent people, would make a continuance of himself or his party in absolute power for any length of time a matter of utter impossibility.  In these circumstances the problem which President Kruger had set himself was a remarkably difficult one.  To republicanize South Africa, to secure the support of the majority of the white inhabitants, and yet to yield no whit of power to those by whose aid he would achieve his object, would indeed be carrying to sublime heights the policy of ‘something for nothing.’

Many years before the Raid Mr. Kruger had a well-defined policy to republicanize South Africa, and the Uitlanders of the Transvaal were quite alive to it, as may be gathered by reference to their newspapers.  But the voice was as a voice crying in the wilderness in those days, and, as has been said, it required the Jameson Raid to advertize the conditions in the Transvaal and to direct attention to what had been proclaimed unheeded for many years.  Immediately prior to the Raid Mr. Kruger was floundering in a morass of difficulties.  The policy of ‘something for nothing’ had been exposed, and it was seen through by all the Dutchmen in South Africa and was resented by all save his own little party in the Transvaal; but the Jameson Raid gave the President a jumping-off place on solid ground, and he was not slow to take advantage of it.