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elegates from the Free State. From ten to fifteen columns are trekking about in my district, devastating everything. There is but little grain, but my greatest trouble is the families who are still with us. We have 200 families, and how and on what must they live? Some months ago I had 200 burghers. Now I have only 80. If we must continue the war I with my men can leave my district, but what must I then do with my 200 families? My instruction was: "Do not surrender the independence," but more than half the burghers who gave me this instruction have been captured, and subsequently others have asked me to try to arrive at a satisfactory arrangement, and to act according to circumstances. I am at one with the proposal of State Secretary Reitz. Let us even give up a portion of our country if we can thereby retain our independence. I recollect when I was still a child the late President Jan Brand saying: "Give up the Diamond Fields! You will profit more from them than England; you plough and sow and farm." This we can do now, too. Commandant Fleming (Hoopstad) said that Hoopstad had been considerably devastated, and few cattle had been left, but there were still other cattle with which they had escaped. Matters in his district were not in such a state that they could not continue the war. There was also sufficient game for them to live on. The burghers had said to him: "We have sacrificed wives and children, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, money and blood, and if we must now surrender our independence too, we give up everything, and rather than do that we will fight to the finish." However, he had to admit that the burghers were not acquainted with the conditions in other parts of the country and in the Transvaal, and now that he knew what these conditions were he could support the proposal of State Secretary Reitz to give up a portion of the country to save the independence. They should, if possible, make an end to the war out of sympathy with the poor families who suffered so grievously from the enemy and from the Kaffirs. Acting State President Burger spoke as follows: The Governments must receive an instruction from the delegates after they have heard and considered everything. We should now make a fresh proposal to the British and see what will come of it. If our proposals are rejected then we stand exactly where we were before. If any one of you is attached to his independence, I am too, and I shall very
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