been denounced by the Chief Justice from the
Bench of the High Court as a perjurer." C. 9,521 (which
contains a full record of the whole affair).]

[Footnote 103: The words are quoted by Mr. M. P. C. Walter,
the editor, in a letter of protest published in the Transvaal
_Leader_ of July 7th, 1899. C. 9,521.]

[Footnote 104: _Ibid._]

These expressions scarcely do justice to the spirit of vindictiveness
with which certain of the republican leaders regarded the British
population of the Rand. On May 22nd, 1900, less than a year after the
date of the Volksraad discussion of the Franchise Bill, and when Lord
Roberts was advancing rapidly upon Johannesburg, a conversation took
place with Mr. Smuts in Pretoria, which was reported in _The Times_.
In the course of this conversation the State Attorney said, with
reference to the proposed destruction of the mines, that "he greatly
regretted that Johannesburg should suffer, but that the Government had
no choice in the matter, as the popular pressure upon them was too
great to be resisted." This determination is rightly characterised by
Mr. Farrelly, the late legal adviser to the Government of the South
African Republic, as the "fiendish project of wrecking the mines and
plunging into hopeless misery for years tens of thousands of innocent
men, women, and children." But that is not all. He has put upon
record[105] the sinister fact that the man entrusted with the
execution of this infamous design was Mr. Smuts himself. The mines
were saved, therefore, not by the Boer Government, but in spite of it,
and solely through the independent action of Dr. Krause, the
Acting-Commandant of Johannesburg, who "arrested the leader of the
wreckers, sent by Mr. Smuts, the day before the surrender to Lord
Roberts."[106]

[Footnote 105: _The Settlement after the War_, p. 218.]

[Footnote 106: _Ibid._]

[Sidenote: Action of the British.]

The British population, although it provided no such displays of
racial passion, was in an equally determined mood. Undismayed by the
threats of the Boers, the Uitlander Council continued calmly to
analyse the Franchise Bill in each successive phase--an unostentatious
but very useful service, which materially assisted Lord Milner in
following the windings and doublings of Boer diplomacy. After the
great meeting at Johannesburg (June 10th), the British centres in the
Cape Colony, Natal, a