must certainly be the result; and an
eminent French statesman may remember a conversation I then had with
him, in the course of which he declared that the English would never,
never, make up their minds to go to war. That was the dangerous idea
then spread throughout European diplomacy, and which must have been
transmitted to Krueger by Dr. Leyds, and some of the representatives of
European Governments then in Pretoria. Thus Krueger thought he need not
trouble. Hence his attitude at Bloemfontein. It was not because England
was desirous of war that it broke out, it was because she bore the
reputation of being too pacific, and because she had given too many
proofs of forbearance to the Boers.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FRANCHISE.[19]

1.--_Impossible Comparisons._

Dr. Kuyper favors us with a long dissertation upon the various laws of
naturalisation existing throughout the world. But he cannot compare a
country such as Belgium with 226 inhabitants per square kilometre, or as
France with 72 per square kilometre, with a country that has two
inhabitants to the square kilometre. Had he been logical, he would have
said that the 9,712,000 square kilometres of the United States should
always have been exclusively peopled by the 600,000 or 700,000 Sioux
Iroquois and Apaches who used to dispute them.

Dr. Kuyper will reply that they were Redskins and so do not count. Be it
so! Though the theory of inferior races has very grave consequences from
the standpoint taken up by him.

But, to be logical, he ought to regret that the Puritans of
Massachusetts opened wide the doors of the frontiers of their young
Republic to English, Irish, and German immigrants, and, having given
them equal rights with themselves, fused and made them into citizens of
the United States. My present object however is not to discuss theories,
but to state facts.

[Footnote 19: _Le Siecle_, April 9th, 1900.]

2.--_Policy of Reaction._

In the Conference which resulted in the Convention of 1881, Messrs.
Krueger and Jorissen stated to the English Commissioners that the
Franchise would be extended to whites after one year's residence. (V.
chap IV. Sec. 3.) This period had been fixed in 1874. In 1882 it
was altered to five years' residence.

However, the Boers felt it expedient to offer a satisfaction of some
kind, and, in accordance with their usual methods, conceived in 1890 the
device of creating a Second Volksraad, deprived of all executive powe