In the Conference which resulted in the Convention of 1881, Messrs. Krueger and Jorissen stated to the English Commissioners that the Franchise would be extended to whites after one year’s residence. (V. chap IV.  Sec. 3.) This period had been fixed in 1874.  In 1882 it was altered to five years’ residence.

However, the Boers felt it expedient to offer a satisfaction of some kind, and, in accordance with their usual methods, conceived in 1890 the device of creating a Second Volksraad, deprived of all executive power, to which naturalised aliens were eligible.

But more especially, after the deep levels began to be worked in 1892, when vast outlays of capital were required, and a long duration to gold mining undertakings was ensured, the Uitlanders began to feel that they must no longer be regarded as suspicious aliens, liable to be expelled from the country at any moment.  In 1892, they accordingly formed an Association, The National Union, “for the purpose of obtaining by all Constitutional means, equal rights for all the citizens of the Republic and the redress of grievances.”  Far from desiring to place the Republic under control of the British Government, they affirmed the maintenance of its Independence.

In his manifesto, Mr. Leonard, Chairman of the Union, demands:  (1) The establishment of the Republic as a true Republic; (2) A Constitution which should be drawn up by competent men, to be elected by the whole population, and which should be a guarantee against all hasty modifications; (3) An equitable system of franchise, and honest representation; the equality of Dutch and English languages.

The Government of Pretoria had done everything that was possible to provoke and justify these demands.

In 1894, ignoring the three months’ delay between the promulgation and enforcing of a law required by the Constitution, it was enacted that children born in the Transvaal of alien parents should not be recognised as citizens, unless their fathers had taken the oath of allegiance.

One Uitlander wrote:  “Thirteen years ago I entered my name on the Field Cornet’s book, in the belief that I should receive the franchise at expiration of four years.  For nine years I have been deprived of my rights; and I may have to wait twenty years in this country without becoming a citizen.”

The Boer government, instead of becoming more and more liberal in proportion to the wealth and power with which its alien residents have endowed it, has grown more and more reactionary; and this state of reaction has been marked by a series of broken pledges.

I now proceed to give an account of the varying phases of the Franchise Question, since the beginning of the Conference at Bloemfontein.

3.—­The Bloemfontein Conference.

The Conference at Bloemfontein opened on the 31st of May and closed on the 5th of June, 1889.  Mr. Chamberlain’s Despatch, of the 10th of May, to Sir Alfred Milner, suggests that he should adopt “a spirit of conciliation in order to arrive at an acceptable arrangement which might be presented to the Uitlander population, as a reasonable concession to their just demands.”