,000 persons--were represented by
the deputies sent from ninety-seven districts in the Colony. At the
close of the meeting a deputation was appointed to lay the resolutions
passed by the Congress before the High Commissioner, and request him
to bring them officially to the notice of the Home Government. It was
composed of Mr. de Villiers, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church;
a member of the Legislative Council; the member of the Legislative
Assembly for Worcester, and two others. This deputation was received
by Lord Milner at Government House on December 11th, and the
circumstances of the remarkable interview which then took place
present a striking picture of the state of the Colony at this time,
and of the extraordinary attitude which the mass of the Dutch
population had assumed towards the representative of their sovereign.
It is one of those illuminating occasions in which a whole situation
is, as it were, gathered up into a single scene.

The disloyal purpose of the deputation is heightened rather than
concealed by the disguise of the constitutional forms in which it is
clothed. The scarcely veiled demand for the independence of the Cape
Colony, now put forward by the Afrikander nationalists, is as
magnificently audacious as the ultimatum. Knowing the infamous
character of the methods by which the agitation in favour of the Boers
was being promoted, Lord Milner might have been excused if he had
given way to some strong expressions of indignation. No such note,
however, is heard in his reply. He is as dry and passionless as an
attorney receiving his clients. Yet his words are as frank as his
manner is composed. To these delegates he speaks the most terrible
truths with the same freedom as he would have used, if the business of
their errand had been a pleasant interchange of compliments, instead
of a grim defiance that might, or might not, be converted from words
into deeds.

[Sidenote: Deputation to Lord Milner.]

Lord Milner, who is accompanied only by his private secretary,
surprises the deputation at the outset by requesting that the
resolutions may be read forthwith in his presence. They are:

"1. We, men and women of South Africa assembled and represented
here, having heard the report of the people's deputation to
England, and having taken into earnest consideration the
deplorable condition into which the peoples of South Africa have
been plunged, and the grave dangers threaten