to succeed Sir Jacobus
de Wet as British Agent in Pretoria, had by this time gained some
experience of the ways of Pretoria. Probably few servants of the
Crown have been called upon to perform a service more exacting or
less grateful than that which fell to the British Agent during the
period in which Mr. Conyngham Greene has held the post. Conscious
that his Government was prevented by the acts of others from
vindicating its own position, hampered by the knowledge of immense
superiority of strength, dealing with people who advanced at every
turn and under every circumstance their one grievance as a
justification for all the acts of hostility which had preceded that
grievance or had been deliberately perpetrated since, he was
compelled to suffer snubs and annoyances on behalf of his Government,
with no relief but such as he could find in the office of recording
them. A good deal had been done by Mr. Conyngham Greene to establish
visible and tangible evidence of the desire of her Majesty's
Government to interest themselves in the condition of British
subjects and--as far as the exigencies of a very peculiar case would
for the time permit--to protect them from at least the more
outrageous acts of injustice; but the strength of the chain is the
strength of the weakest link, and it was always felt that until the
link in Cape Town was strengthened there was not much reliance to be
placed upon the chain.

Very frequently surprise has been expressed that, after the fortunate
escape from a very bad position which the Jameson Raid afforded to
President Kruger's party, the Boers should not have learned wisdom
and have voluntarily undertaken the task of putting their house in
order. But having in mind the Boer character is it not more natural
to suppose that, inflated and misled by a misconceived sense of
success and strength, they should rather persist in and exaggerate
the ways which they had formerly affected? So at least the Uitlanders
thought and predicted, and their apprehensions were amply justified.
In each successive year the Raad has been relied upon to better its
previous best, to produce something more glaring and sensational in
the way of improper laws and scandalous measures or revelations
than anything which it had before done. One would imagine that it
would pass the wit of man to devise a means of exploiting the
Uitlanders which had not already been tried, but it would truly
appear that the First Volksraad may b