hich you are willing to suffer, even to the
death. You say that you can do nothing without arms. You do not need
any arms that I see. If you fight with weapons, you will be overcome,
and I do not think your defeat will excite great sympathy. But if it be
true that the impositions on you are intolerable, your taxes heavy, the
claims of Government extortionate, and the demands excessive, why submit
to them? It seems to me that if you were all united in the
determination to pay no more of these claims, taxes and bribes, and
folded your arms and dared them to do their worst, that Kruger must
either yield or proceed to compulsion of some kind. He would probably
confiscate your property, or put you in prison or banish you. Whatever
he does that is violent and tyrannical will cause such an explosion of
opinion that will prove to you all that England does not forget her
children. No cause was ever won without suffering, and I am afraid that
your cause, however good it may be, cannot be won without sacrifice and
suffering of some kind. The leader of any movement is sure to be the
object of a tyrant's hate, and the leader or leaders of your cause ought
not to venture in it without being prepared to suffer and endure
whatever ills may follow."

Having explained the Scriptural quotation at the request of others, I
now proceed to be more definite in my own behalf with regard to the
statement in the same letter, that "we cannot interfere until we know
what Johannesburg has resolved upon doing."

A gentleman present said that, during his recent visit to London, an
English statesman asked him, "What would be the effect of sending 30,000
British troops to the Transvaal." Whereupon he answered that he would
be the first man who would take up his rifle against them.

This gentleman was an Englishman by birth. He had been the loudest and
the most eloquent against the British Government for their disregard of
the rights guaranteed by the Convention of 1884, he knew as well as
anyone present the tenour of the despatches that had been exchanged
between the British Government and the Transvaal Republic, and was
perfectly acquainted with the patient and continuous efforts the
Colonial Office had made to obtain a just consideration for the
grievances of the Uitlanders. It was obvious to us that, if a British
statesman had asked such a question, it must have been with the view of
knowing--if diplomacy failed--what result would follo