revenues.

Is it right or prudent to exclude such interests and such a majority
from legislative representation?

Could a minority of one-fifth, that is to say, twelve Uitlander members
against forty-eight Boer members, be said to constitute a menace to the
status or to the conservative interests of State?

Do Uitlanders not deserve equal recognition with the burghers in respect
to intrinsic interest in the land, seeing that the former supplied all
the skill and the capital to explore and exploit the mine wealth, all at
their risk, and without which it would all have remained hidden and the
country continued fallow and poor?

Though one-fifth would be so small a minority, it would at least have
afforded the constitutional method of declaring the wishes of
Uitlanders, and have done away with the disquieting and less effective
practices of Press agitations, public demonstrations, and petitions. The
measure could also have been expected to open up the way towards
reconciling relations between the English and Boer races, beginning in
the Transvaal, where it was hoped that the burghers would be gained over
as friends, and so to stand aloof from the Afrikaner Bond. These were
the supreme objects for peaceful progress and not for annexation. Solemn
assurances from highest quarters were repeatedly given that no designs
existed against the integrity of the Republic, that nothing unfriendly
lurked behind the franchise demand, but that necessity dictated it for
general good and the preservation of peace. Nor were other diplomatic
means left unemployed to ensure the acceptance of the franchise reform.
In addition to firmness of attitude and a display of actual force, most