ief
Justice protested against such a degradation of his high office, and he
was dismissed in consequence without a pension. The judge who had
condemned the reformers was chosen to fill the vacancy, and the
protection of a fixed law was withdrawn from the Uitlanders.

A commission appointed by the State was sent to examine into the
condition of the mining industry and the grievances from which the
new-comers suffered. The chairman was Mr. Schalk Burger, one of the most
liberal of the Boers, and the proceedings were thorough and impartial.
The result was a report which amply vindicated the reformers, and
suggested remedies which would have gone a long way towards satisfying
the Uitlanders. With such enlightened legislation their motives for
seeking the franchise would have been less pressing. But the President
and his Raad would have none of the recommendations of the commission.
The rugged old autocrat declared that Schalk Burger was a traitor to his
country for having signed such a document, and a new reactionary
committee was chosen to report upon the report. Words and papers were
the only outcome of the affair. No amelioration came to the new-comers.
But at least they had again put their case publicly upon record, and it
had been endorsed by the most respected of the burghers. Gradually in
the press of the English-speaking countries the raid was ceasing to
obscure the issue. More and more clearly it was coming out that no
permanent settlement was possible where half the population was
oppressed by the other half. They had tried peaceful means and failed.
They had tried warlike means and failed. What was there left for them to
do? Their own country, the paramount power of South Africa, had never
helped them. Perhaps if it were directly appealed to it might do so. It
could not, if only for the sake of its own imperial prestige, leave its
children for ever in a state of subjection. The small spark which caused
a final explosion came from the shooting of a British subject named
Edgar by a Boer policeman, Jones, in Johannesburg. The action of the
policeman was upheld by the authorities, and the British felt that their
lives were no longer safe in the presence of an armed overbearing
police. At another time the incident might have been of no great
importance, but at that moment it seemed to be taken as the crowning
example of the injustice under which the miners suffered. A meeting of
protest called by the British residents