s they were present to the minds of
the Reformers, Mr. Phillips wrote an article in the _Nineteenth
Century_ magazine, which was purely historical, moderate in tone, and
obviously designed only as an answer to the allegations which had
been made. The Executive Council arrived at the conclusion that it
was a breach of his undertaking to abstain from interference in
politics, and they issued a decree of banishment against him. As Mr.
Phillips had taken up his residence permanently in Europe, and as it
was well known that it would be extremely inconvenient for him to
return to South Africa in order to dispute this action it was
generally considered that the object of the move was to establish
a precedent, so to say, on the cheap, and in the same spirit to
intimidate others among the Reformers who were believed not to have
lost their interest in the cause of reform nor to have abandoned
their intention to begin again as soon as they were free to do so. It
is no exaggeration to say that scarcely a week could have passed
during the last two and a half years in which some or all of the half
dozen Uitlanders most prominent in the cause of reform have not been
in receipt of a warning of one kind or another, ranging from
apparently friendly advice not to take too keen an interest in
certain matters, up to the giddy eminence of being black listed in
the Dutch papers as one of those to be dragged out and shot without
trial as a traitor and a rebel. Such are the conditions under which
the unarmed Uitlanders labour for reform.

{41} (July, 1899.) Du Plessis was promoted to be Chief Inspector of
Prisons shortly after the release of Messrs. Sampson and Davies,
and still holds that post!

PART II.

A POSTSCRIPT.

CHAPTER X.

THREE YEARS' GRACE.

Very seldom has any community been in a position so unsatisfactory as
that in which the people of Johannesburg found themselves in the year
1896. Judgments passed in the heat of the moment upon matters which
had not been properly explained, and which in many cases were
completely obscured by deliberate misrepresentation, had incurred for
the community dislike contempt and mistrust which were wholly
undeserved. Those who knew the facts and who were able and willing to
speak, the Reformers themselves, were bonded to abstain from politics
for three years under penalty of banishment. Betrayed, deserted,
muzzled, helpless, hopeless, and divided, no community could have
been