PREFACE.


The universal interest in the affairs of the South African Republic is
responsible for the idea that a selection of documents illustrative of
the South African controversy will be appreciated by American readers.
The documents which are here reprinted are by no means unobtainable;
but, to the general reader, they have been hitherto quite inaccessible.
Only the largest public libraries have the proper sources of
information, and even with these books at hand the student has been
forced to delve in a mass of irrelevant material for the hidden object
of his desire.

The present compilation has been made in the hope of meeting the
immediate demands of the public. To avoid cumbersomeness, many important
documents have necessarily been omitted; yet as far as possible, the
editors have given a complete series of documents. The arrangement is
partly chronological, and we hope altogether logical. Commencing with
the London Convention of 1884, which defines the status of the South
African Republic in its relations with Great Britain, we follow with the
revised Constitution of 1889, and its complementary law of June 23,
1890, which granted representation in a second Volksraad to burghers of
two years' standing. The latest legislation concerning the right of
franchise is given in the enactment of July, 1899. This law, together
with negotiations looking toward further concessions to the Uitlander
population forms the subject of our third chapter. No agreement having
been reached, and numerous complications having arisen, conspicuously