fact is that Mr. Stead had met Dr. Leyds (he went on meeting him during the war), and had been persuaded to drop Cecil Rhodes and Jameson in spite of his former praise of them.  The publicity given to these letters does evidently not give weight to the opinion of the writers or Mr. Stead either; the interest of the Blue Book on “Correspondence relating to the recent Political Situation in South Africa” does not lie that way, but it lies in the opinion and advice of an Afrikander—­to be found in Sir H. de Villiers’ letters—­he being the Speaker of the House in Cape Colony, Chief Justice, and one of the leaders of the Afrikander party.  Sir Henry de Villiers has been often taken to task for being a partisan of the Boers, he cannot, therefore, be suspected of biassed ideas in favour of Great Britain.  Some extracts of the letters he wrote to President Steyn on the 21st of May to Mr. Fischer and to his brother Mr. Melius de Villiers on the 31st of July, then on the 28th September, twelve days before the ultimatum was sent by Mr. Krueger, show to what extent he appreciated the latter’s policy.  His opinion carries all the more weight as he was one of the delegates to negotiate the 1881 Convention.

On the 21st of May, he says: 

“I am quite certain that if in 1881 it had been known to my fellow Commissioners that the President would adopt his retrogressive policy, neither President Brand nor I would ever have induced them to consent to sign the Convention.  They would have advised the Secretary of State to let matters revert to the condition in which they were before peace was concluded; in other words, to recommence the war.”

Here are his views on the actual situation: 

“On my recent visit to Pretoria I did not visit the President as I considered it hopeless to think of making any impression on him, but I saw Reitz, Smuts and Schalk Burger, who, I thought, would be amenable to argument, but I fear that either my advice had no effect on them, or else their opinion had no weight with the President.

     “I urged upon them to advise the President to open the Volksraad
     with promises of a liberal franchise and drastic reforms.

“It would have been so much better if these had come voluntarily from the Government instead of being gradually forced from them.  In the former case they would rally the greater number of the malcontents around them, in the latter case no gratitude will be felt to the Republic for any concessions made by it.  Besides, there can be no doubt that as the alien population increases, as it undoubtedly will, their demands will increase with their discontent, and ultimately a great deal more will have to be conceded than will now satisfy them.  The franchise proposals made by the President seems to be simply ridiculous.

“I have always been a well-wisher to the Republic, and if I had any influence with