eing
elected chairman of the National Union, I am profoundly impressed
with the responsibilities attached to the position. The issues to be
faced in this country are so momentous in character that it has been
decided that prior to the holding of a public meeting a review of the
condition of affairs should be placed in your hands, in order that
you may consider matters quietly in your homes. It has also been
decided that it will be wise to postpone the meeting which was to
have taken place on the 27th December until the 6th day of January
next.

On that day you will have made up your minds on the various points
submitted to you, and we will ask you for direction as to our future
course of action. It is almost unnecessary to recount all the steps
which have been taken by the National Union, and I shall therefore
confine myself to a very short review of what has been done.

THE THREE PLANKS.

The constitution of the National Union is very simple. The three
objects which we set before ourselves are: (1) The maintenance of
the independence of the Republic, (2) the securing of equal rights,
and (3) the redress of grievances. This brief but comprehensive
programme has never been lost sight of, and I think we may
challenge contradiction fearlessly when we assert that we have
constitutionally, respectfully, and steadily prosecuted our purpose.
Last year you will remember a respectful petition, praying for the
franchise, signed by 13,000 men, was received with contemptuous
laughter and jeers in the Volksraad. This year the Union, apart
from smaller matters, endeavoured to do three things.

THE RAAD ELECTIONS.

First we were told that a Progressive spirit was abroad, that twelve
out of twenty-four members of the First Volksraad had to be elected,
and we might reasonably hope for reform by the type of broad-minded
men who would be elected. It was therefore resolved that we should do
everything in our power to assist in the election of the best men who
were put up by the constituencies, and everything that the law
permitted us to do in this direction was done.

DISAPPOINTED HOPES.

The result has been only too disappointing, as the record of the
debates and the division list in the Volksraad prove. We were
moreover told that public speeches in Johannesburg prevented the
Progressive members from getting a majority of the Raad to listen to
our requests, that angry passions were inflamed, and that if we would
only hold our t