er,
based on a more extended franchise, its powers were carefully
restricted, and the election not only of the First Raad (the principal
Chamber), but also of the President and Executive Council, remained
confined to those who had full citizenship under the previous statutes.
Discontent spread among the new-comers, who complained both of their
exclusion from political rights and of various grievances which they and
the mining industry suffered at the hands of the government. A reform
association was formed in 1892. In 1894 the visit of the British High
Commissioner, who had come from the Cape to negotiate with the President
on Swaziland and other pending questions, led to a vehement pro-British
and anti-Boer demonstration at Pretoria, and thenceforward feeling ran
high at Johannesburg, the new centre of the Rand mining district and of
the immigrant population. Finally, in December, 1895, a rising took
place at Johannesburg, the circumstances attending which must be set
forth in the briefest way, for the uncontroverted facts are fresh in
every one's recollection, while an attempt to discuss the controverted
ones would lead me from the field of history into that of contemporary
politics.[36] It is enough to say while a large section of the
Uitlanders (as the new alien immigrants are called) in Johannesburg were
preparing to press their claims for reforms upon the government, and to
provide themselves with arms for that purpose, an outbreak was
precipitated by the entry into Transvaal territory from Pitsani in
Bechuanaland of a force of about five hundred men, mostly in the service
of the British South Africa Company as police, and led by the Company's
Administrator, with whom (and with Mr. Rhodes, the managing director of
the Company) a prior arrangement had been made by the reform leaders,
that in case of trouble at Johannesburg he should, if summoned, come to
the aid of the Uitlander movement. A question as to the flag under which
the movement was to be made caused a postponement of the day previously
fixed for making it. The leaders of the force at Pitsani, however,
became impatient, thinking that the Boer government was beginning to
suspect their intentions; and thus, though requested to remain quiet,
the force started on the evening of December 29. Had they been able, as
they expected, to get through without fighting, they might probably have
reached Johannesburg in three or four days' march, for the distance is
only