It is no part of the object of this volume to deal with the negotiations which took place at Bloemfontein or with the terms of settlement at the present moment under discussion; the object is to recite the circumstances and conditions which made these negotiations necessary, and which, if they fail, must lead to bloodshed.

With a barrier of insurmountable race feeling before them, the Uitlanders are hopeless of effecting a peaceful redress of their grievances except by the aid of the Suzerain power.  The President and his party will not yield one iota except upon the advice of those who have the will and the power to see that that advice is followed.  Such power rests in two quarters.  It rests with the progressive Dutch of South Africa.  They have the power, but unfortunately they have not as yet the will or they have not the courage to use it.  Time after time have they been stultified by rallying to the cry of race and defending Mr. Kruger’s attitude on certain points, only to find the President abandoning as untenable the position which they have proclaimed to be proper.  To them have been addressed most earnest and most solemn appeals to be up and doing whilst there was yet time.  From them have been extracted—­in times of peace—­the amplest admissions of the justice of the Uitlander case.  But there is a point beyond which they will not go.  They will not say to the President and his party:  ’We cannot extol in you what we would condemn in ourselves.  The claim of kindred cannot for ever be the stalking-horse for injustice.’  That they cannot do; and thus are they bonded to the one who will raise the race cry without scruple.  There is no more hopeless feature for the peaceful settlement of the Transvaal question from within than the unanimity which marks the public utterances of those who are claimed as representing Afrikander sentiment in the present crisis.  Those expressions, ranging from the most violent denunciations by politicians and ministers of the gospel down to the most illogical and hysterical appeals of public writers, all, all are directed against the injured.  Not a warning, not a hint—­not a prayer even—­addressed to the offender.  They have not the sense of justice to see or they have not the courage to denounce the perpetrators of evil, but direct all their efforts to hushing the complaints of the victims.  Truly it would almost appear that there is some guiding principle running through it all; something which recognizes the real sinner in the victim who complains and not in the villain who perpetrates; the something which found a concrete expression when bail was fixed at L200 for the murder of a British subject and at L1,000 for the crime of objecting to it.