urely this exceeds the limits of fair criticism.

Before I go on to the actual history of the Annexation there is one
point I wish to submit to my reader. In England the change of Government
has always been talked of as though it only affected the forty thousand
white inhabitants of the country, whilst everybody seems to forget
that this same land had about a million human beings living on it, its
original owners, and only, unfortunately for themselves, possessing a
black skin, and therefore entitled to little consideration,--even at the
hands of the most philanthropic Government in the world. It never seems
to have occurred to those who have raised so much outcry on behalf of
the forty thousand Boers, to inquire what was thought of the matter by
the million natives. If they were to be allowed a voice in their own
disposal, the country was certainly annexed by the wish of a very large
majority of its inhabitants. It is true that Secocoeni, instigated
thereto by the Boers, afterwards continued the war against us, but, with
the exception of this one chief, the advent of our rule was hailed with
joy by every native in the Transvaal, and even he was glad of it at the
time. During our period of rule in the Transvaal the natives have had,
as they foresaw, more peace than at any time since the white man set
foot in the land. They have paid their taxes gladly, and there has been
no fighting among themselves; but since we have given up the country
we hear a very different tale. It is this million of men, women, and
children who, notwithstanding their black skins, live and feel, and have
intelligence as much as ourselves, who are the principal, because the
most numerous sufferers from Mr. Gladstone's conjuring tricks, that can
turn a Sovereign into a Suzerain as airily as the professor of magic
brings a litter of guinea-pigs out of a top hat. It is our falsehood
and treachery to them whom we took over "for ever," as we told them, and
whom we have now handed back to their natural enemies to be paid off for
their loyalty to the Englishman, that is the blackest stain in all this
black business, and that has destroyed our prestige, and caused us to be
looked on amongst them, for they do not hide their opinion, as "cowards
and liars."

But very little attention, however, seems to have been paid to native
views or claims at any time in the Transvaal; indeed they have all along
been treated as serfs of the soil, to be sold with it, if n