that he felt that they could only accept the Bill if it laid down
that there was no intention of taking the country from the white people
and handing it over to the blacks.

MR. J. G. KEYTER (Ficksburg) said he wished to openly denounce, and most
emphatically so, that the people or the Government of the Orange Free State
had treated the coloured people unreasonably or unjustly,
or in any way oppressively. On the contrary, the O.F.S. had always treated
the coloured people with the greatest consideration and the utmost justice.
The O.F.S. had made what Mr. Merriman called stringent laws.
He (Mr. Keyter) called them just laws. They TOLD THE COLOURED PEOPLE PLAINLY
THAT THE O.F.S. WAS A WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY, AND THAT THEY INTENDED
TO KEEP IT SO. (Hear, hear.) THEY TOLD THE COLOURED PEOPLE
THAT THEY WERE NOT TO BE ALLOWED TO BUY OR HIRE LAND,
and that they were not going to tolerate an equality of whites and blacks;
and he said that they were not going to tolerate that in the future,
and if an attempt were made to force that on them, they would resist it
at any cost to the last,* for if they did tolerate it,
they would very soon find that they would be a bastard nation.
His experience was that the Native should be treated firmly,
kept in his place and treated honestly. They should not give him
a gun one day and fight him for it the next day. They should tell him,
as the Free State told him, that IT WAS A WHITE MAN'S COUNTRY,
THAT HE WAS NOT GOING TO BE ALLOWED TO BUY LAND THERE OR TO HIRE LAND THERE,
AND THAT IF HE WANTED TO BE THERE HE MUST BE IN SERVICE.

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* By passing the Bill, the Government conceded all the extravagant demands
of the "Free" Staters; yet, a year later they took up arms
against the Government.