joining in with the progress of the rest, are to do all in their power
to impede the general advance."

It is bad enough when any naturally separate State shows the retrograde
temper and an inability to profit by its own resources, but when that
State is an integral part of one great and young continent, then its
action becomes intolerable. I think it is not only the people in a
country that have claims, but the country itself that has a claim. If
you want South Africa to ripen ultimately into a great first-class world
Power (and that is _its_ claim), instead of a bunch of fifth-rate
antagonistic States, the first thing to do is to range the country under
one Government, and as a British Government will be progressive, and a
Dutch one will certainly be retrograde, you must put it under a British
one. That is the first essential, and if any genuinely patriotic
instincts are overridden in the process, it is very sad, but it cannot
be helped. Better this than that the whole country should miss its
destiny.

As for the Uitlanders and their grievances, I would not ride a yard or
fire a shot to right all the grievances that were ever invented. The
mass of the Uitlanders (_i.e._, the miners and working-men of the Rand)
had no grievances. I know what I am talking about, for I have lived and
worked among them. I have seen English newspapers passed from one to
another, and roars of laughter roused by the _Times_ telegrams about
these precious grievances. We used to read the London papers to find out
_what our grievances were_; and very frequently they would be due to
causes of which we had never even heard. I never met one miner or
working-man who would have walked a mile to pick the vote up off the
road, and I have known and talked with scores and hundreds. And no man
who knows the Rand will deny the truth of what I tell you.