piece
of economy that was one of the immediate causes of the revolt.

The reader will remember the financial condition of the country at the
time of the Annexation, which was one of utter bankruptcy. After three
years of British rule, however, we find, notwithstanding the constant
agitation that had been kept up, that the total revenue receipts for
the first quarter of 1879 and 1880 amounted to 22,773 pounds, and 44,982
pounds respectively. That is to say, that, during the last year of
British rule, the revenue of the country more than doubled itself, and
amounted to about 160,000 pounds a-year, taking the quarterly returns at
the low average of 40,000 pounds. It must, however, be remembered that
this sum would have been very largely increased in subsequent years,
most probably doubled. At any rate the revenue would have been amply
sufficient to make the province one of the most prosperous in South
Africa, and to have enabled it to shortly repay all debts due to the
British Government, and further to provide for its own defence. Trade
also, which in April 1877, was completely paralysed, had increased
enormously. So early as the middle of 1879, the Committee of the
Transvaal Chamber of Commerce pointed out, in a resolution adopted by
them, that the trade of the country had in two years, risen from almost
nothing to the considerable sum of two millions sterling per annum, and
that it was entirely in the hands of those favourable to British rule.
They also pointed out that more than half the land tax was paid by
Englishmen, or other Europeans adverse to Boer Government. Land, too,
had risen greatly in value, of which I can give the following instance.
About a year after the Annexation I, together with a friend, bought a
little property on the outskirts of Pretoria, which, with a cottage
we put up on it, cost some 300 pounds. Just before the rebellion we
fortunately determined to sell it, and had no difficulty in getting 650
pounds for it. I do not believe that it would now fetch a fifty pound
note.

[*] In Blue Book No. (C. 2866) of September 1881, which is
descriptive of various events connected with the Boer
rising, is published, as an appendix, a despatch from Sir
Garnet Wolseley, dated October 1879. This despatch declares
the writer's opinion that the Boer discontent is on the
increase. Its publication thus--_apropos des bottes_--nearly
two years after it was written, is rather an a