I know that sort of argument generally employed by people who are in the wrong and especially employed by people whom Dr. Kuyper can scarcely bring forward as models. "All very well, but what of that little slip of yours." ... Dr. Kuyper might as reasonably invoke la loi de dessaisissement voted by the French Chamber last year. Our answer to him is that the violation of the most elementary principles of justice in one country, does not justify it in another. He proceeds:
"The Boer Government is said to be an oligarchy. And yet every citizen has his vote—Throughout the land there are juries...."
Really Dr. Kuyper affects too great naïveté. The Boers may have created a democracy among themselves; with regard to natives and Uitlanders they are an oligarchy.
"Every citizen has his vote": But Mr. Krüger's argument for refusing the franchise to Uitlanders is that they numbered 70,000, while the Burghers were only 30,000. Here we have a minority governing the majority; what else is an oligarchy?
"Throughout the land there are juries"; yes, but juries made up of Boers who try Uitlanders, treat them as enemies, and find that the policeman Jones acted rightly in killing Edgar. That way of constituting a jury is a certainty of injustice to the Uitlanders, and not a guarantee of justice.
President Krüger promised to do something for the municipal organisation of Johannesburg; this is how he keeps his promise. Each division of that town elects two members, a Burgher and an Uitlander; according to the last census, the burghers living in Johannesburg, numbered 1,039; the Uitlanders 23,503; thus 1,039 burghers had as many representatives in the municipal Corporation as the 23,503 Uitlanders. The Mayor, who was nominated by the Government, had the right of absolute veto.
In modern law there exists a principle introduced by England, which is the true basis of representative Government: "no representation, no taxation." It is the right of every citizen who contributes to the taxes to approve of them and to control the use of them.
In autocratic governments, he has no such right. In oligarchic governments, the governing class imposes burdens upon those it governs. This is the case in the Transvaal.
In an oligarchy, taxes are not levied with a view to the general good of the community, but for the benefit of the ruling class; and this is the political conception of the Boers.
Dr. Kuyper says, in speaking of the Uitlanders: