necessarily well founded. It may be wrong to look a gift horse in the mouth; but when the gift is to be considered in the light of a settlement, and when the good faith of the giver is open to doubt, it is not unreasonable for the recipient of the gift to look into the horse's mouth and examine if the teeth are sound. Moreover, the value of these concessions to the mining interests is more than counterbalanced in Uitlander opinion by the proposed prohibition of Sunday labour in the Transvaal mines. The effect of this measure would be to reduce the week's labour from seven days to five, as, pumping being stopped on Sunday, the whole of Monday would have to be employed in pumping out the water in the mines before working could be recommenced. The general principle of this measure may probably commend itself to the British public at home; but the Uitlanders, who are aware of the utter indifference the Boers have always displayed about the spiritual welfare of the Kaffirs, cannot fail to consider the proposed legislation as a deliberate attempt to diminish the profits of the mining industry. With regard to the political situation, there has, during the present year, been no change for the better in the attitude of the Transvaal Government. Indeed, what change there has been, has been for the worse. The Uitlanders have been given to understand more explicitly than ever that their demand for a voice in the administration of public affairs will be met by a point-blank refusal. The expulsion of Mr. Cecil Rhodes from South Africa has been demanded at Pretoria as being an essential preliminary even to to the consideration of any grievances of which the Uitlanders may imagine they have a right to complain. This demand has been based almost avowedly on the ground that the late Premier of the Cape Colony is the champion of British ascendancy in South Africa, and that his policy is therefore hostile to the interests of the South African Republic. Having failed hitherto in bringing about the ostracism of Mr. Rhodes, President Krüger has adopted a number of measures all of which are manifestly designed to thwart the realization of the project with which the personality of Mr. Rhodes is identified, and of which we have already spoken. The Orange Free State has been induced to take into its own hands the railway system constructed over its territory by the Cape Colony under the Rhodes' Ministry. The Orange Free State will have to repay the large advances made by the Cape Colony for the construction of these lines; and the means of repayment are, there is every reason to suppose, to be supplied out of the revenues of the Transvaal, which owe their existence simply and solely to the the contributions levied from the Uitlanders. It is not difficult to understand the considerations which may induce the Transvaal to become a creditor of the sister Republic for a very large amount upon a not very adequate security. The obvious result of the transaction would be that the administration of the trunk-lines between Capetown and Johannesburg would pass into the hands of the Netherlands Railway Company, and that the lines would be worked henceforward in such a fashion as to favour the Delagoa Bay route to the Transvaal in preference to the Capetown route. A second and less justifiable measure is the passing of the Alien Expulsion Bill. By this measure the Executive of the Republic, which under present circumstances is only another name for the President, is entitled to order any resident in the Transvaal, not by birth or naturalization a burgher of the State, to quit his territory at any moment. No cause need be assigned for expulsion; no appeal is allowed to the Courts of Justice. Of its own free will and pleasure the Executive is at liberty to banish any Uitlander to whose presence it may object. The result of this outrageous measure is that every Uitlander will henceforth live with a rope round his neck, and will be debarred from taking part in any kind of political action. To incur in any way the displeasure of the Boer authorities would involve the immediate expulsion of any Uitlander under the Alien Act, and in many cases this expulsion would entail his personal ruin, if not that of any enterprise with which he may be associated. Under the peculiar conditions of the Randt, this measure will prove an even more effective gagging Act than the new law regulating the press, under which all free comment on public affairs will have to be made on the personal liability of the writer as well as the editor. The most significant measure, however, taken by the Transvaal Government since the downfall of the insurrection is to be found in the fact that the war estimates for the coming year are to be raised from some 200,000l. to close upon a million. The only possible explanation of this enormous and extravagant military expenditure is that the Republic intends to raise an armed force of such a size as to form an important factor in all South African politics, while the only enemies against whom such a force could conceivably be employed are either the British colonists in South Africa or the British Uitlanders within the Transvaal. In the face of these facts, it seems to us idle to talk platitudes about the healing influence of time, or to recommend the Uitlanders to wait patiently in the hope that the Boers will learn learn to see the unwisdom of their own policy. We have dwelt at perhaps undue length on the general conditions which have brought about the conflict between Boers and Uitlanders, not because we wish to justify one party or the other, but because we thought it worth while to show that this conflict was due to permanent, not temporary causes. The conditions remain the same to-day as they were before the Provisional Government was established, or before Dr. Jameson crossed the frontier; the only differences are, that the whole course of events has strengthened the action of the natural forces to which these conditions owe their existence, and that the action of the Uitlanders has for the time practically deprived the British Government of the power to interfere for their control or modification. Let us restate in conclusion what these conditions are. On the one side we have a small Boer minority, composed exclusively of farmers, living in lone dwellings, scattered over the broad Veldt. On the other hand, we have a large British majority, massed together in the towns, which though Dutch by name are British in fact. The minority is stationary in numbers; the majority is daily increasing by the influx of new Uitlander immigrants. The Boers have in their hands the complete and absolute control of all public affairs. The Uitlanders are excluded from all political rights. The wealth, energy, and intelligence of the community are represented by the towns. The ignorance and fanaticism of the community are to be found on the Boer farms. Under these conditions there seems to us, putting aside all national prepossessions and prejudices, to be only one possible solution of the Boer-Uitlander controversy. In the end the race which is strongest in numbers, in wealth, in intelligence, and in energy, must win the day. The ultimate triumph of the Uitlanders is, in our opinion, a matter of almost mathematical certainty. There can be no rest in the Transvaal till Uitlanders and Boers are given equal rights; until there is rest in the Transvaal, there can be no peace in South Africa. It is the interest therefore, as well as the duty, of the Imperial Government to make the settlement of the Boer-Uitlander difficulty the dominant principle of our South African policy. Towards this end their efforts should be steadily concentrated, for upon its settlement is staked the question whether the Dutch or British elements are to predominate in South Africa. From this conclusion we can see no escape. ART. ART. X.-1. One of the People. Life and Speeches of William McKinley. By Byron Andrews. Chicago, 1896. 2. Congressional Record. 51st Congress. 1889-90. 3. The Life and Speeches of William J. Bryan. Edited by J. S. Ogilvie. New York, August 1896. 4. Political Discussions. By James G. Blaine. Conn., 1867. 5. Speeches of Benjamin Harrison. New York, 1892. 6. Speeches and Writings of Grover Cleveland. George F. Parker. New York, 1892. FOR Norwich, Edited by OR the first time within living memory the American Union has experienced a period of severe economic stress, and the effect upon the nation is a singular comment on the boasts of democratic enlightenment and republican simplicity. During a quarter of a century the marvellous expansion of the country had continued without a check, and political orators boasted that the wealth of the Union exceeded that of all other nations. This prosperity, it was alleged, was a direct result of their republican constitution. They had their own fiscal system, just as they had a political dispensation that differed from that of older countries. On currency even they had made special discoveries. Their note circulation was an issue of the State, not of banking corporations, whom political sentiment led them to regard with suspicion, and from whom they levied a considerable tax. On one point only they acquiesced in the habits of older nations: they had adopted a gold standard of currency, a policy which was considered advisable in view of the fact that they had an enormous trade with Europe and intended to increase it. Suddenly, about five years ago, all this tide of prosperity ceased to flow. In a year or two it began to ebb, and has been ebbing ever since. The fall in prices has extended to all descriptions of goods, and in the United States the result of this check to expansion has been a severe monetary convulsion and an outburst of discontent akin to revolution. The Presidential Election every four years is the usual vent for national emotion, and the people now clamour for a President and Congress who shall restore their dream of perpetual prosperity. The two great historic parties compete not only in adulation of the voting multitude and in reckless promises, but in the promulgation of the most fantastic theories upon trade and finance; yet these are just the subjects in which it might be supposed the intelligence of the American people would be above the average. The Republicans say they are ready to bring back affluence affluence by an increased tariff on all imported goods. The Democrats are equally confident of reviving a Golden Age with the free coinage of silver. 6 Our American friends habitually answer European criticism on their political methods by telling us that they do one thing at a time. The United States has within one hundred and twenty years increased its area more than seventeenfold and its population twentyfold. This vast material development is the one thing' to which the nation has attended; and accompanied, as it has been, by a great improvement in the condition of the people enrolled under the banner of the Republic, it is impossible to deny its importance in the present or to ignore its possible influence on the future of the world. Whilst Russia and Germany have been gaining territory and population by the sword, the United States has been adding to her productive acres and the number of citizens with no incidents more dramatic than raids upon Spanish Republics, or the plunder of the Mormons, or an occasional Indian massacre. The result was a great trading nation, which differed, Matthew Arnold said, from other industrial communities in the fact that it had no populace. Everybody had attained a general standard of well-being except the negro and the drunken Irishman. If there were no monarchs or nobles, there were plenty of very rich men ; and considering the high level of general intelligence, the standard of comfort, the industry and spirit of organization among the people, there was much to justify the boast of Mr. Blaine and President Harrison that they were the wealthiest nation on the earth. It would not be correct to say of a Republic noblesse oblige, but great success in economic development, the leadership in wealth and prosperity among the younger nations, should naturally provide the world with a bright example of civic knowledge. The mere fact that their success has been obtained without the apparatus of war, by the action of the people, independent of any stimulus from rulers or statesmen, suggests a widely diffused political capacity, and accordingly their popular writers and orators boast their enlightenment as well as their size and multitude. If with these expectations we turn to what their orators tell us is 'the most sublime spectacle on earth,' the choice of the head of the Republic by twelve millions of freemen, the result is a surprise which, were the issues at stake less serious both for America and for English investors, would be extremely entertaining. Since jaded Athens first roared at the drollery of the Knights in the archonship of Stratocles, the world has never seen so lively a picture of democracy as this year's contest for the Presidency exhibits. The circumstances of the |