A Few Facts of History
President Burgess, the predecessor of Kruger is described in this work as leaving the Transvaal "brokenhearted by the cruelty and mean intrigue, the dissensions among and disloyalty of the people." He left a statement denouncing Kruger for his intrigues to secure the presidency for himself, and charges and proves Kruger to have been a leader in breaking promises and betraying where he had promised support. When the Transvaal was annexed after President Burgess' pathetic retirement before the rising tyrant, Kruger calmly took office under the British government, and resigned the dignity and emolument only when refused increased remuneration for which he repeatedly applied. The English authority during this time was undermined by rumors incessantly circulated among the sentimentalists of English statesmen, and having some foundation that the Transvaal would be given up. This was preparing the way for trouble, and the weakness displayed in England was met by what amounted to a conspiracy in the Transvaal. Kruger's point was an artful though crude demagogy of violence against taxation.
It was about taxes that the first English war was finally started, and the Majuba Hill incident was preliminary to a complacent accommodation, glossed in England as magnanimity and exalted expression of the overwhelming power of Great Britain, but perfectly understood in the Transvaal to mean that the British Empire was whipped and could be kicked about at the pleasure of the powerful President.
Outrages Perpetrated by Boers
It was during the war leading down to this inglorious surrender and false peace, that many murders were committed by Boer assassins, who used white flags and Red Crosses to lure victims. A few incidents of this treachery are thus specified:
"There was the murder of Green in Lydenburg, who was called to the Boer camp, where he went unarmed and in good faith, only to have his brains blown out by the Boer with whom he was conversing; there was the public flogging of another Englishman by the notorious Abel Erasmus because he was an Englishman and had British sympathies; and there were the various white flag incidents. At Ingogo the Boers raised the white flag, and when in response to this General Colley ordered the hoisting of a similar flag to indicate that it was seen, a perfect hail of lead was poured on the position where the General stood; and it was obvious that the hoisting of the flag was merely a ruse to ascertain where the General and his staff were. There was the ambulance affair on Majuba, when the Boers came upon an unarmed party bearing the wounded with the Red Cross flying over them, and after asking who they were and getting a reply, fired a volley into the group, killing Surgeon-Major Cornish."
These are facts of history, and the Boers have played the same savage game in all their wars with the English. The policy of Kruger has from the first been engineered to exclude immigrants, to repel all foreigners especially held in abhorrence by the Transvaal government, and constantly denied civil rights associated with civilization.
After a naturalized subject "shall have been qualified to sit in the Second Volksraad for ten years (one of the conditions for which is that he must be thirty years of age), he may obtain the full burgher rights or political privileges, provided the majority of burghers in his ward will signify in writing their desire that he should obtain them, and provided the President and Executive shall see no objection to granting the same! It is thus clear that, assuming the Field-cornet's records to be honestly and properly compiled, and to be available for reference (which they are not), the immigrant, after fourteen years' probation during which he shall have given up his own country and have been politically emasculated, and having attained the age of at least forty years, would have the privilege of obtaining burgher rights should he be willing, and able to induce the majority of a hostile clique to petition in writing on his behalf, and should he then escape the veto of the President and Executive.
The Copingstone to Mr. Kruger's Chinese Wall
This was the coping-stone to Mr. Kruger's Chinese wall. The Uitlanders and their children were disfranchised forever, and as far as legislation could make it sure, the country was preserved by entail to the families of the "Voortrekkers." The measure was only carried because of the strenuous support given by the President both within the Raad and at those private meetings which practically decide the important business of the country.