among its
members. The civil service was not above suspicion. Rich men and
powerful corporations surrounded those who had concessions to give or
the means of influencing legislation, whether directly or indirectly.
The very inexperience of the Boer ranchman who came up as a member of
the Volksraad made him an easy prey. All sorts of abuses sprang up,
while the primary duties of a government were very imperfectly
performed. Hardly any administration was needed while the Transvaal had
a population of wandering stock-farmers. But when one hundred thousand
white immigrants were congregated along the Witwatersrand, and were
employing some fifty thousand native workpeople, an efficient police, an
abundant water-supply, good sanitary regulations, and laws to keep
liquor from the natives became urgently needed; and none of these things
was provided, although taxation continued to rise and the treasury was
overflowing. Accordingly, the discontent of the Uitlanders increased. It
was no longer a mere question of obtaining political rights for their
own sake, it was also a question of winning political power in order to
reform the administration, and so secure those practical benefits which
the President and the Volksraad and the Hollander officials were either
unable or unwilling to give. In 1892 an association, called the National
Union, was formed by a number of Uitlanders, "to obtain, by all
constitutional means, equal rights for all citizens of the Republic, and
the redress of all grievances." Although nearly all those who formed it
were natives either of England or of the British Colonies, it did not
seek to bring the country under British control, but included among its
aims "the maintenance of the independence of the Republic."
Nevertheless, it incurred the hostility of the President and his
friends, and its petitions were unceremoniously repulsed. This tended to
accentuate the anti-Boer feeling of the Uitlanders, so that when Sir H.
Loch, the High Commissioner, came up from the Cape in 1894 to negotiate
regarding Swaziland and other pending questions, he was made the object
of a vehement demonstration at Pretoria. The English took the horses out
of his carriage and drew it through the streets, waving the British flag
even over the head of President Kruger himself, and shouting "Reform!
reform!" This incident redoubled Mr. Kruger's apprehensions, but did not
shake his purpose. It suggested new plans to the Uitlanders, who had