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The police afford no adequate protection to the lives and property of the inhabitants of Johannesburg; they are rather a source of danger to the peace and safety of the Uitlander population. 'A further grievance has become prominent since the beginning of the year.
About one-quarter of the aggregate Transvaal farms are owned by Uitlander individuals or by companies who are mostly English. But the bulk of the land owned by burghers in both States has gradually become cut up by the process of succession into holdings so small as to admit of hardly any further division.
Cecil Rhodes, Premier of the British Cape Colony, millionaire, creator and managing director of the territorially-immense and financially unproductive South Africa Company; projector of vast schemes for the unification and consolidation of all the South African States, one imposing commonwealth or empire under the shadow and general protection of the British flag, thought he saw an opportunity to make profitable use of the Uitlander discontent above mentioned make the Johannesburg cat help pull out one of his consolidation chestnuts for him.
Officials and imported Hollanders handled the stream of gold which came in from the mines, while the unfortunate Uitlander who paid nine-tenths of the taxation was fleeced at every turn, and met with laughter and taunts when he endeavoured to win the franchise by which he might peaceably set right the wrongs from which he suffered. He was not an unreasonable person.
At this meeting several points were discussed, but as no definite proposal regarding franchise could be submitted, no decision was arrived at, it being made clear, however, that this was only a preliminary conversation with the object of exchanging views, and that in any case the opinion of the Uitlander population, and also that of our friends in Europe, would have to be fully ascertained.
He has stood stock still in South Africa for two centuries and a half, and would like to stand still till the end of time, for he has no sympathy with Uitlander notions of progress. He is hungry to be rich, for he is human; but his preference has been for riches in cattle, not in fine clothes and fine houses and gold and diamonds.
There is one disability the existence of which the advocates of the Uitlander cause are always painfully conscious of. They know as well as any of their critics that it is no picture which is all black that you get no perspective, no effects, without contrasts!
The real business which took him to Lydenburg and Middelburg has no doubt been satisfactorily accomplished. Boer sentiment has been tested in secret, and the usual professions of fervid patriotism and of readiness for target practice with the Uitlander as the mark have been profusely evoked.
The Uitlanders consider that, if the intentions of the Government were as good as they desire them to be thought, firstly, they should not object to have the conditions permanently established and not leave them liable to alteration at the sweet will of the Superintendent, as they are to-day; and secondly, as there has been nothing to hinder the carrying out of benevolent intentions had they existed there is no reason why there should be five or six thousand Uitlander children without any facilities for education in their own language except such as are provided by private enterprise or charity.
Maladministration and peculation of public moneys go hand-in-hand, without any vigorous measures being adopted to put a stop to the scandal. The education of Uitlander children is made subject to impossible conditions.
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