nder enormous losses, except such
as stood in relation with dividend-paying mines. England, though
apparently apathetic and inactive, was not inattentive to the situation.
Whoever had a stake, whether in South Africa or abroad, looked to Great
Britain as the Power upon whom the duty devolved to provide a peaceable
remedy. The suzerainty controversy was then followed by other questions
of diplomatic difference, among which that of the franchise reform.
Upon this matter English intervention took an insistent form. It clearly
turned all upon that--and once it were satisfactorily arranged, the
amicable solution of other questions might in turn be expected to
follow. As to suzerainty, that claim appeared relegated to remain in
abeyance. A conference was convened at Bloemfontein early in June, 1899,
for the discussion of those topics between the Colonial Governor, Sir
Alfred Milner, and the Presidents of the two Republics. The outcome was
a final demand for the right of representation of the Uitlander
interests in the legislative bodies of the Transvaal, amounting to
one-fifth of the total aggregate of members, the voting qualifications
to consist in the usual reasonable conditions and a residence in the
State of five years, operating retrospectively.

We may here consider whether such a demand contained any real feature of
unfairness to warrant refusal.

Three-fifths of the entire white Transvaal population were Uitlanders,
the majority of them English. They own four-fifths of the total wealth
invested in the State. About half of them have been domiciled, with
house and other fixed property, for periods of from five to ten years
and more.

The preponderance is not only in numbers and wealth, but also in
intelligence and in contributing at least four-fifths of the total State
revenues.

Is it right or prudent to exclude such interests and such a majority
from legislative representation?

Could a minority of one-fifth, that is to say, twelve Uitlander members
against forty-eight Boer members, be said to constitute a menace to the
status or to the conservative interests of State?

Do Uitlanders not deserve equal recognition with the burghers in respect
to intrinsic interest in the land, seeing that the former supplied all
the skill and the capital to explore and exploit the mine wealth, all at
their risk, and without which it would all have remained hidden and the
country continued fallow and poor?

Though one-fifth wo