Government to the Free State were regulated by the
Bloemfontein Convention (1854). This latter and the Sand
River Convention (1852), were the Conventions of Grey's
time.]

[Sidenote: Transvaal affairs.]

Lord Milner's hope that President Krueger might meet him half-way,
although it was shown by subsequent events to have been devoid of
foundation, had for the moment superficial appearances in its favour.
After their retreat on the question of the Aliens Immigration Law the
attitude of the Pretoria Executive remained for some time outwardly
less hostile to the Imperial Government. Woolls-Sampson and "Karri"
Davies were released from Pretoria gaol in honour of Queen Victoria's
Jubilee,[29] and at the same period the first and only step was taken
that offered a genuine promise of reform from within. The Industrial
Commission, appointed earlier in the year by the Executive at the
request of President Krueger, surprised the Uitlander community by
conducting its inquiry with a thoroughness and impartiality that left
no ground for complaint. Its report, reviewing in detail the
conditions of the mining industry, was published in July. It afforded
a complete confirmation of the fiscal and administrative complaints
put forward by the Uitlanders against the Government; and as Mr.
Schalk Burger, the Chairman of the Commission, was both a member of
the Executive and the leader of the more progressive section of the
Boers, there seemed to be a reasonable prospect of the recommendations
of the Report being carried into effect. Scarcely more than six months
later President Krueger proved conclusively that the hope of these, or
of any other, reforms was entirely unfounded; but so long as there
remained any prospect of the Uitlanders and the Transvaal Government
being able to settle their differences by themselves, Lord Milner
consistently pursued his intention of "making things easy" for the
Transvaal Government. And this although the Pretoria Executive soon
began to make heavy drafts upon his patience in other respects.[30]

[Footnote 29: These two men, now Colonel Sir Aubrey
Woolls-Sampson and Major W. D. "Karri" Davies, had refused to
sign the petition of appeal--an act of submission which
President Krueger required of the Johannesburg Reformers,
before he released them from Pretoria gaol. They did so on
the ground that the Imperial Government had