years' residence, the right to vote at elections to
this chamber being attainable after the oath and two years' residence.
This Second Raad, however, is limited to the consideration of certain
specified subjects, not including taxation, and its acts can be
overruled by the First Volksraad, while its assent is not required to
the acts of that body. It has therefore turned out little better than a
sham, having, in fact, been created only as a tub to throw to the
Uitlander whale. The effect of the legislation of 1890 and subsequent
years down to 1894 (legislation too intricate and confused to be set
forth in detail here) has been to debar any immigrant from acquiring the
right to vote for the First Volksraad until he has passed the age of
forty and resided for at least twelve years in the country after taking
the oath and being placed on the local government lists, lists on which
the local authorities are said to be nowise careful to place him. Nor
does birth in the Republic confer citizenship, unless the father has
taken the oath of allegiance. President Kruger, who has held office
since 1881, was chiefly instrumental in passing these laws, for his
force of character, long experience of affairs, and services in the
crisis of 1877-81 gave him immense power over the Raad, in which he
constantly spoke, threatening the members with the loss of national
independence unless they took steps to stem the rising tide of foreign
influence. As a patriot, he feared the English; as a Boer Puritan of the
old stubborn stock, he hated all foreigners and foreign ways, seeing in
them the ruin of the ancient customs of his people. He carried this
antagonism so far that, being unable to find among his citizens men
sufficiently educated to deal with the growing mass of administrative
work which the increase of wealth, industry, and commerce brought, he
refused to appoint Dutch-speaking men from the Cape or Natal, because
they were natives of British Colonies, and recruited his civil service
from Holland. The Hollanders he imported were far more strange to the
country than Cape Dutchmen would have been, and the Boers did not, and
do not now, take kindly to them. But they were, by the necessity of
their position, anti-English, and that was enough.

Meanwhile the old Boer virtues were giving way under new temptations.
The Volksraad (as is believed all over South Africa) became corrupt,
though of course there have always been pure and upright men