THE GREAT BULWARK OF LIBERTY,

the right to trial by jurymen who are our peers, is denied to us.  Only the burgher or naturalized burgher is entitled to be a juryman; or, in other words, anyone of us is liable to be tried upon the gravest charge possible by jurymen who are in no sense our peers, who belong to a different race, who regard us with a greater or lesser degree of hostility, and whose passions, if inflamed, might prompt them, as weak human creatures, to inflict the gravest injustice, even to deprive men of their lives.  Supposing, in the present tense condition of political feeling, any one of us were tried before a Boer jury on any charge having a political flavour about it, should we be tried by our peers, and should we have a chance of receiving even-handed justice?

THE SECRET SERVICE FUND.

When we come to the Administration, we find that there is the grossest extravagance, that Secret Service moneys are squandered, that votes are exceeded, that the public credit is pledged, as it was pledged in the case of the Netherlands Railway Company, and later still in the case of the Selati Railway, in a manner which is wholly inconsistent with the best interests of the people.

SQUANDERING THE PUBLIC REVENUE.

The Delagoa Bay festivities are an instance of a reckless disregard of a Parliamentary vote; L20,000 was voted for those useless festivities—­about L60,000 was really expended, and I believe certain favoured gentlemen hailing from Holland derived the principal benefit.  It is said that L400,000 of our money has been transferred for some extraordinary purpose to Holland.  Recently L17,000 is said to have been sent out of the country with Dr. Leyds for Secret Service purposes, and the public audit seems a farce.  When the Progressive members endeavoured to get an explanation about large sums of money they were silenced by a vote of the majority prompted by President Kruger.  The administration of the public service is in a scandalous condition.

A CORRUPT LEGISLATURE.

Bribery and corruption are rampant.  We have had members of the Raad accepting presents of imported spiders and watches wholesale from men who were applying for concessions, and we have the singular fact that in every instance the recipient of the gift voted for the concession.  We have the President openly stating that such acceptance of presents was wholly moral.  We have a condition of affairs in which the time of the meeting of the Volksraad is looked upon as the period of the greatest danger to our interests, and it is an open secret that a class of man has sprung up who is in constant attendance upon the members of the Volksraad, and whose special business appears to be the ‘influencing’ of members one way or the other.  It is openly stated that enormous sums of money have been spent, some to produce illegitimate results, some to guard against fresh attacks upon vested rights.  The Legislature passed an Act solemnly denouncing corruption in the public service.  One man, not an official, was punished under the law, but nothing has ever been done since to eradicate the evil.