ves at the time of the election would
stand by their professions when brought face to face with the
President and his party in battle array.

The warning was too well warranted. The Volksraad so constituted was
the one which rejected with sullen incivility (to apply no harsher
term) the petition of 40,000 Uitlanders for some measure of franchise
reform. This Progressive Raad was also the one which passed the Bills
curtailing the liberty of the press, and prohibiting the holding of
public meetings and the organization of election committees, and
which distinguished itself by an attempt to wrest from the High Court
the decision of a matter still _sub judice_--the cyanide case.

In this case the mining industry had combined to test the validity of
certain patents.{13} In spite of attempts at reasonable compromise on
behalf of the mines, and these failing, in spite of every effort
made to expedite the hearing of the case, the question continued
to hang for some years, and in the meantime efforts were being
made during two successive sessions of the Volksraad to obtain
the passage of some measure which would practically secure to the
holders of the patents a monopoly for the use of cyanide, or an
indefeasible title to the patents, whether valid in law and properly
acquired or not. These attempts to evade the issue were in themselves
a disgrace to a civilized nation. Failing the obtaining of an
absolute monopoly, an endeavour was made to pass a law that all
patents held without dispute for a certain period should be
unassailable on any grounds. There was a thin attempt at disguising
the purpose of this measure, but so thin, that not even the
originators could keep up the pretence, and the struggle was
acknowledged to be one between the supporters of an independent
court of justice and honest government on the one side, and a party
of would-be concessionaires--one might say 'pirates'--on the
other. The judges made no secret of their intention to tender their
resignations should the measure pass; the President made no secret
of his desire that it should pass. His party voted as one man in
favour of it, and the coffee meetings on the Presidential stoep were
unanimously for it. The Raad was exactly divided on the measure,
and it was eventually lost by the casting-vote of the chairman. No
absolute harm was done, but the revelation of the shameful conditions
of affairs in a Raad of which so much good was expected did as
much as