n instead of the
freedom and equality of the two races that prevail in the Cape and
Natal, and that did prevail in the Orange Free State.

"The cause of the dispute was this: In 1884 a Convention was agreed on
between Great Britain and the Transvaal, acknowledging the independence
of the Transvaal, subject to three conditions: that the Boers should
not make treaties with foreign Powers without the consent of the
paramount Power in South Africa, i.e., England; that they should not
make slaves of the native tribes; and that they should guarantee equal
treatment for all the white inhabitants of the country as respects
taxation. As the whole war has risen out of Kruger's persistent refusal
to keep his promises, both verbal and in writing, that he would observe
this condition, I append the clause giving rise to the contention:--

"Article XIV. (1884 Convention).--'All persons other than natives
conforming themselves to the laws of the South African Republic will not
be subject in respect to their persons or property or in respect of
their commerce and industry to any taxes, whether general or local,
other than those which are or may be imposed upon citizens of the said
Republic.

"The mines brought so large a population to Johannesburg that it at last
outnumbered by very far the entire Boer burghers in the State. Kruger,
seeing that the inevitable effect of such an increase must be the same
amalgamation of the new and old populations which was going on in Natal
and Cape Colony, and to a smaller extent in the Orange Free State,
unless artificial barriers could be devised to keep the races apart, at
once set to to scheme modes of taxation that should evade Article XIV.
of the Convention, throwing the entire burden on the Uitlanders, and
letting the Boers, who were nearly all farmers, escape scot free.
Farmers, for example, use no dynamite, miners do; and President Kruger
gave a monopoly of its supply to a German, non-resident in the country,
who taxed the miners for this article alone $2,600,000 a year beyond the
highest price it could otherwise have been bought for. This was his own
act, the Volksraad not being consulted. Besides the high price, the
quality of the explosive was bad, often causing accident or death. When
it did cause accident or death, the miners were prosecuted by the
Government, from whose agent they were compelled to buy it, and fined
for having used it!

"At the time the Convention was signed, in 1884,