The Uitlanders had not failed to perceive that the pit dug for them might conceivably serve another purpose.  They ignored these two breaches of faith on the part of the President, and pursued the negotiations; and Mr. Kruger overreached himself.  Having failed with Johannesburg, and having failed in the Raad, he appealed to his burghers with the scheme of mock reform.  His hope was to get such support in the country that the Volksraad in its May session would have to spare the monopoly.  He did not realize that he would have to make good the things which he had offered as shams.  His greed had given the opening:  his hand had provided the weapon.  It is not good to be too clever; and the luck had turned.

The publication of the correspondence between the Government and the capitalists created a profound impression.  The series of speeches delivered by the President in support of his sham reforms only deepened that impression by providing more and more convincing evidence as to who the real intriguers and mischief-makers were.  To the Uitlander public one thing became quite clear, and that was that it was the Government who wished to barter their rights away and the capitalists—­the abused capitalists—­who refused to do so.  An attempt was immediately made to hold a large public meeting for the purpose of endorsing the attitude taken by the negotiators, but the Government refused permission to hold an open-air meeting.  In their attempt to hold a meeting indoors, the Uitlanders were defeated by the building being condemned as unsafe.  The Government yielded, however, before the storm of disapproval which followed their prohibition, and the State Secretary, Mr. Reitz, suggested that the Uitlanders should hold a series of small indoor meetings in different localities.  The meetings were accordingly held, and they provided unmistakable evidence of the gravity of the position.  By their numbers, their unanimity, their enthusiasm, and their moderation, the Uitlanders carried conviction to some and roused the grave apprehension of others.  Among the latter, it is fair to infer, were President Kruger and his sympathizers in the Free State and Cape Colony.

There is one disability the existence of which the advocates of the Uitlander cause are always painfully conscious of.  They know as well as any of their critics that it is no picture which is all black—­that you get no perspective, no effects, without contrasts!  Yet it has not been believed that they were willing to acknowledge the good that there was, and that a politic instinct no less than a sense of justice prompted a diligent effort to discover and make much of the genuinely hopeful signs.  The monotony was none of their making; it was in the nature of the facts, and not of the recital; but monotony there was, and it was productive of one very bad result.  The conditions, admittedly bad, came to be regarded by a good many as being only as bad as they had for a long time been known to be, leaving little hope except