It is seldom possible to indicate the precise period at which a permanent change in the feeling of a people may be considered to have been effected, but the case of the Uitlanders undoubtedly presents one instance in which this is possible.  Up to the passing of this law quite a considerable section of the people believed that the President and the Volksraad would listen to reason, and would even in the near future make considerable concessions.  A larger section, it is true, believed nothing of the sort, but at the same time were so far from thinking that it would be necessary to resort to extreme measures that they were content to remain passive, and allow their more sanguine comrades to put their convictions to the test.  It is not too much to say that not one person in a hundred seriously contemplated that an appeal to force would be necessary to obtain the concessions which were being asked.  It might be said that within an hour the scales dropped from the eyes of the too credulous community, and the gravity of the position was instantly realized.  The passage of the Bill and the birth of the revolutionary idea were synchronous.

In a brief sketch of events, such as this is, it is not possible with due regard to simplicity to deal with matters in chronological order, and for this reason such questions as the franchise, the railway, dynamite, and others have been explained separately, regardless of the fact that it has thereby become necessary to allude to incidents in the general history for which no explanation or context is supplied at the moment.  This is particularly the case in the matter of the franchise, and for the purpose of throwing light on the policy of which the franchise enactments and the Netherlands Railway affairs and other matters formed a portion, some explanation should be given of President Kruger’s own part and history in the period under review.

Mr. Kruger was elected President in 1882, and re-elected in 1888 without serious opposition, his one rival, General Joubert, receiving an insignificant number of votes.  The period for which he was now elected proved to be one of unexpected, unexampled prosperity, furnishing him with the means of completing plans which must have seemed more or less visionary at their inception; but it was also a period of considerable trial.  The development of the Barberton Goldfields was a revelation to the peasant mind of what the power of gold is.  The influx of prospectors was very considerable, the increase of the revenue of the State appeared simply colossal; and no sooner did the Boer rulers begin to realize the significance of the Barberton boom than they were confronted with the incomparably greater discoveries of the Witwatersrand.  The President did not like the Uitlanders.  He made no concealment of the fact.  He could never be induced to listen to the petitions of that community, nor to do anything in the way of roads and bridges in return for the very heavy contributions which the