Administration for its
failure to keep the promises made at the time of annexation.

Three thousand out of eight thousand voters actually signed petitions
in favour of annexation. In the Raad, President Burgers openly
reproached members for proclaiming in public, and for improper
reasons, views diametrically opposed to those privately expressed on
the confederation and annexation questions; and refused to consult
with three out of four members appointed as a deputation to confer
with him on these subjects, because they had not paid their taxes,
and had so helped by example, not less than by the actual offence, to
cause the ruin of the country and the loss of independence. And on
March 3 President Burgers read an address to the Raad, in which the
following words occur:

'I would rather be a policeman under a strong Government than the
President of such a State. It is you--you members of the Raad and the
Boers--who have lost the country, who have sold your independence for
a _soupe_ (a drink). You have ill-treated the natives, you have shot
them down, you have sold them into slavery, and now you have to pay
the penalty.'

* * * * * * *

'We should delude ourselves by entertaining the hope that matters
would mend by-and-by. It would only be self-deceit. I tell you
openly, matters are as bad as they ever can be; they cannot be worse.
These are bitter truths, and people may perhaps turn their backs on
me; but then I shall have the consolation of having done my duty.'

* * * * * * *

'It is said here this or that man must be released from taxes,
because the Kaffirs have driven them off their farms, and occupy the
latter. By this you proclaim to the world that the strongest man is
master here, that the right of the strongest obtains here.' [Mr.
Mare: 'This is not true.'] 'Then it is not true what the honourable
member, Mr. Breytenbach, has told us about the state of the Lydenburg
district; then it is not true either what another member has said
about the farms in Zoutpansberg, which are occupied by Kaffirs.
Neither is it true, then, what I saw with my own eyes at Lydenburg,
where the burghers had been driven off their farms by the Kaffirs,
and where Johannes was ploughing and sowing on the land of a burgher.
These are facts, and they show that the strongest man is the master
here. The fourth point which we have to take into account affects our
relations with our English neig