the confidence and respect of all parties.  The elevation of the Acting State Attorney to the Bench left yet another highly responsible post open and the Government choice fell upon Mr. J.C.  Smuts, an able and conscientious young barrister, and an earnest worker for reform.  An Afrikander by birth and educated in the Cape Colony, he had taken his higher degrees with great distinction at Cambridge and had been called to the English Bar.

But there came at the same time another appointment which was not so favourably viewed.  There was still another vacancy on the Bench, and it became known that, in accordance with the recommendation expressed by the Raad that all appointments should whenever possible be first offered to sons of the soil, i.e., born Transvaalers, it was intended to appoint to this judgeship a young man of twenty-four years of age lately called to the bar, the son of the Executive Member Kock already referred to in this volume.  The strongest objection was made to this proposal by all parties, including the friends of the Government; the most prominent of all objectors were some of the leading members of the bar who, it was believed, carried influence and were in sympathy with the Government.  A delay took place and it was at one time believed that President Kruger had abandoned his intention, but it is understood that pressure was brought to bear upon the President by a considerable party of his followers, and in the course of a few days the appointment was duly gazetted.

The selection of educated and intelligent Afrikanders, sincerely desirous of purifying the administration, for such responsible offices as those of State Secretary and State Attorney, was gratefully welcomed by the Uitlander community, who believed that only through the influence of such men consistently and determinedly exerted could a peaceful solution of many difficult questions be found.  It is but bare justice to these gentlemen to state that never were they found wanting in good intention or honest endeavour, ready at all times to inquire into subjects of complaint, anxious at all times to redress any legitimate grievances.  To them and to many other less prominent but no less worthy officials of the Transvaal Civil Service, whom it is impossible to name and to whom it might prove to be no good turn if they were named, is due an expression of regret that they may perhaps suffer by references which are not directed against them but which are justified by a rotten system and are called for by the action of others over whom these men have no control.  Nobody but one intimately concerned in Transvaal affairs can appreciate the unpleasant and undeserved lot of the honest official who necessarily, but most unjustly, suffers by association with those who deserve all that can be said against them.