equently carried out upon
the Free State border; but there is abundant evidence to support the
belief that any second reverse in the Eastern Province, such as that
which General Gatacre suffered at Stormberg, would have proved the
signal for a rising in the Western Province. The Bond was active; and
the tone of the meetings held by the various branches throughout the
Colony was as frankly hostile to the Imperial Government as it was
sympathetic to the Republics.

[Sidenote: State of western province.]

The extent to which Mr. Schreiner's qualified co-operation with the
Imperial authorities had aroused the hostility of the Bond will be
seen from the minutes of the proceedings of the meeting of the Cape
Distriks-bestuur, held at the office of _Ons Land_ at the end of
January (1900). It was a small meeting, but among those present were
Mr. Hofmeyr himself and Mr. Malan, the editor of _Ons Land_. On the
motion of the latter, it was unanimously determined that the
forthcoming Annual Congress of the Bond should be asked to pass a--

"resolution (_a_) giving expression of Congress's entire
disapproval of the policy which led to the present bloody war
instead of to a peaceful solution of the differences with the
South African Republic by means of arbitration; and (_b_) urging
a speedy re-establishment of peace on fair and righteous
conditions, as also a thorough inquiry by our Parliament into the
way in which, during the war, private property, the civil
liberties, and constitutional rights of the subject have been
treated."[203]

[Footnote 203: Cd. 261.]

Even more significant--as evidence of the dangerous feeling of
exaltation which possessed the Dutch at this time--was the New Year's
exhortation of _Ons Land_, the journalistic mouthpiece of Mr. Hofmeyr.
And Mr. Hofmeyr, it must be remembered, was not only the head of the
_Commissie van Toezicht_, or Executive of three which controlled the
Afrikander Bond, but the real master of the majority in the Cape
Parliament, upon which the Schreiner Cabinet depended for its
existence. After setting out the "mighty deeds" achieved by the
Afrikander arms during the last three months, this bitter and
relentless opponent of British supremacy in South Africa proceeded to
declare that "still mightier deeds" were to be seen in the coming year
(1900), and that the Afrikander nation, so far from being extinguished
by the conflict with