The art of importing confusion into the simplest matters, has been most successfully practised by Mr. Krüger and Dr. Leyds. They have even succeeded in persuading thinking men that the Uitlanders should have accepted with enthusiasm the law of July 19th, and that they should have been deeply grateful to Mr. Krüger who had "reduced from nine to seven years the term first proposed by him at Bloemfontein."
3.—Pretended Concessions.
The changes referring to the "redistribution" of seats in the Volksraad were numerous. Mr. Krüger posed as making a huge concession to mining districts in raising the number of seats to twelve; but six of these were for the second Volksraad. Now the second Volksraad must always have the same number of members as the First; thus the apparent concession was merely a valueless automatic arrangement, for it is well understood that the second Volksraad is simply a show institution, devised in 1890. The various schemes for redistribution lead one to the conclusion that the number of members in the First Volksraad were to be in inverse ratio to the population.
The Uitlander looked with mistrust upon a law voted one day which could be modified the next by a simple resolution of the Volksraad; he considered it an illusion which might vanish at any moment Mr. Krüger and his friends thought proper.
4.—The Joint Commission.
The British Government might have replied that it did not recognise this law, and have confined itself to the proposals put forward by Sir Alfred Milner at the Bloemfontein Conference. It did not take this attitude which, in France, would have been advised by the most half-hearted of our Nationalists, had the French Government been engaged in similar negotiations.
In his despatch of July 27, Mr. Chamberlain appears to think that "the concessions made to the Uitlanders to guarantee them something of the equality promised them in 1881 were made in good faith; but this law of July 19th is full of complicated details; he therefore proposes that it should be examined by a joint commission." In the Colonial Secretary's despatch of August 2nd to Pretoria, he adds: "It is understood that the Commission to examine into the question of the Uitlanders' Electoral rights shall be prepared to discuss every subject that the Government of the South African Republic may desire to bring before it, including arbitration, exclusive always of the intervention of Foreign Powers."
5.—Bargaining.
The Government of Pretoria had put the law in force without waiting to consider these remarks.