merican
Constitution by which there is a limit to the tenure of this office.
Continued rule for half a generation must turn a man into an autocrat.
The old President has said himself, in his homely but shrewd way, that
when one gets a good ox to lead the team it is a pity to change him.
If a good ox, however, is left to choose his own direction without
guidance, he may draw his wagon into trouble.

During three years the little State showed signs of a tumultuous
activity. Considering that it was as large as France and that the
population could not have been more than 50,000, one would have thought
that they might have found room without any inconvenient crowding.
But the burghers passed beyond their borders in every direction. The
President cried aloud that he had been shut up in a kraal, and he
proceeded to find ways out of it. A great trek was projected for the
north, but fortunately it miscarried. To the east they raided Zululand,
and succeeded, in defiance of the British settlement of that country,
in tearing away one third of it and adding it to the Transvaal. To
the west, with no regard to the three-year-old treaty, they invaded
Bechuanaland, and set up the two new republics of Goshen and Stellaland.
So outrageous were these proceedings that Great Britain was forced
to fit out in 1884 a new expedition under Sir Charles Warren for the
purpose of turning these freebooters out of the country. It may be
asked, why should these men be called freebooters if the founders of
Rhodesia were pioneers? The answer is that the Transvaal was limited
by treaty to certain boundaries which these men transgressed, while no
pledges were broken when the British power expanded to the north. The
upshot of these trespasses was the scene upon which every drama of South
Africa rings down. Once more the purse was drawn from the pocket of
the unhappy taxpayer, and a million or so was paid out to defray the
expenses of the police force necessary to keep these treaty-breakers in
order. Let this be borne in mind when we assess the moral and material
damage done to the Transvaal by that ill-conceived and foolish
enterprise, the Jameson Raid.

In 1884 a deputation from the Transvaal visited England, and at their
solicitation the clumsy Treaty of Pretoria was altered into the still
more clumsy Convention of London. The changes in the provisions were all
in favour of the Boers, and a second successful war could hardly have
given them more than Lo