to that of a clerk, and the
signature of the merchant who possesses stores in more than one town
of this Republic next to that of the official. It embraces also all
nationalities: the German merchant, the doctor from Capetown, the
English director, the teacher from the Paarl--they all have signed
it. So have--and that is significant--old burghers from the Free
State, whose fathers with yours reclaimed this country; and it bears
too the signatures of some who have been born in this country, who
know no other fatherland than this Republic, but whom the law regards
as strangers. Then too there are the newcomers. They have settled for
good: they have built Johannesburg, one of the wonders of the age,
now valued at many millions sterling, and which, in a few short
years, will contain from a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand
souls; they own half the soil, they pay at least three-quarters of
the taxes. Nor are they persons who belong to a subservient race.
They come from countries where they freely exercised political rights
which can never be long denied to free-born men. They are, in short,
men who in capital, energy and education are at least our equals. All
these persons are gathered together, thanks to our law, into one
camp. Through our own act this multitude, which contains elements
which even the most suspicious amongst us would not hesitate to
trust, is compelled to stand together, and so to stand in this most
fatal of all questions in antagonism to us. Is that fact alone not
sufficient to warn us and to prove how unstatesmanlike our policy is?
What will we do with them now? Shall we convert them into friends or
shall we send them away empty, dissatisfied, embittered? What will
our answer be? Dare we refer them to the present law, which first
expects them to wait for fourteen years and even then pledges itself
to nothing, but leaves everything to a Volksraad which cannot decide
until 1905? It is a law which denies all political rights even to
their children born in this country. Can they gather any hope from
that? Is not the fate of the petition of Mr. Justice Morice, whose
request, however reasonable, could not be granted except by the
alteration of the law published for twelve months and consented to by
two-thirds of the entire burgher population, a convincing proof how
untenable is the position which we have assumed? Well, should we
resolve now to refuse this request, what will we do when as we well
know must