There is now threatened a danger even graver than those which have preceded it.  The Government is seeking to get through the Legislature an Act which will vest in the Executive the power to decide whether men have been guilty of sedition, and to deport them and confiscate their goods.  The Volksraad has by resolution affirmed the principle, and has instructed the Government to bring up a Bill accordingly next session.  To-day this power rests justly with the courts of law, and I can only say that if this Bill becomes law the power of the Executive Government of this country would be as absolute as the power of the Czar of Russia.  We shall have said goodbye finally to the last principle of liberty.

PRESIDENT KRUGER INDICTED.

Coming to the Executive Government, we find that there is no true responsibility to the people, none of the great departments of State are controlled by Ministerial officers in the proper sense, the President’s will is virtually supreme, and he, with his unique influence over the legislators of the House, State-aided by an able if hostile State Secretary, has been the author of every act directed against the liberties of the people.  It is well that this should be recognized.  It is well that President Kruger should be known for what he is, and that once for all the false pedestal on which he has so long stood should be destroyed.  I challenge contradiction when I state that no important Act has found a place on the Statute-book during the last ten years without the seal of President Kruger’s will upon it; nay, he is the father of every such Act.  Remember that all legislation is initiated by the Government, and, moreover, President Kruger has expressly supported every Act by which we and our children have been deprived by progressive steps of the right to acquire franchise, by which taxation has been imposed upon us almost exclusively, and by which the right and the liberty of the Press and the right of public meeting have been attacked.

THE JUDGES AND THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT.

Now we come to the judicial system.  The High Court of this country has, in the absence of representation, been the sole guardian of our liberties.  Although it has on the whole done its work ably, affairs are in a very unsatisfactory position.  The judges have been underpaid, their salaries have never been secure, the most undignified treatment has been meted out to them, and the status and independence of the Bench have on more than one occasion been attacked.  A deliberate attempt was made two years ago by President Kruger and the Government to reduce the bench to a position subordinate to the Executive Government, and only recently we had in the Witfontein matter the last of the cases in which the Legislature interfered with vested rights of action.  The administration of justice by minor officials, by native commissioners, and by field-cornets, has produced, and is producing, the gravest unrest in the country; and, lastly, gentlemen,