ards through their
imperfect knowledge of the medium of instruction. It was not to be
supposed that the Uitlanders, after an experience extending over a
decade and a half of all sorts of promises, not one of which had been
kept in the spirit in which it was intended to be construed, would
consent to abandon their scheme at the behest of Dr. Mansvelt and the
misguided few who judged his proposals by appearances. President
Kruger speaking at Rustenburg as lately as March last laid particular
emphasis upon the stipulation in the Law that in the fourth year
Dutch should be the sole medium of instruction, and explained that
his determination was to make Dutch the dominant language.

In the month of February the Transvaal Government received a dispatch
from her Majesty's Government with reference to the dynamite
concession. It referred to the announcement already recorded, that in
the course of the coming session of the Raad a proposal would be
submitted for the extension of the monopoly for fifteen years.
Mr. Chamberlain pointed out that her Majesty's Government were
advised that the dynamite monopoly in its present form constitutes a
breach of the Convention; he expressed the hope that the Transvaal
Government might see its way voluntarily either to cancel the
monopoly or to so amend it as to make it in the true sense a State
monopoly operating for the benefit of the State; and he suggested
that in any case no attempt should be made to extend the present
concession, as such a proposal would compel her Majesty's Government
to take steps which they had hitherto abstained from taking in the
hope and belief that the Transvaal Government would itself deal
satisfactorily with the matter. It was with this despatch, so to say
in his pocket, that the President introduced and endeavoured to force
through the Raad the proposal to grant a fifteen years' extension of
the monopoly.

That representations had been made by the British Government on the
subject of the dynamite monopoly, had been known for some time before
the Peace Negotiations (as they have been called) between the
Government and the Capitalists were proposed. On February 27{49} Mr.
Edouard Lippert, the original dynamite concessionaire, who it was
known would receive the further sum of L150,000 if the monopoly
remained uncancelled for five years, opened negotiations on behalf of
the Government with certain representatives of the capitalist groups
on the Rand; and it was