difficulties that hardly any of the Uitlanders could have been enfranchised by it. It has been estimated that, with the restrictions involved, only one and threequarter per cent. of the Uitlanders could have secured votes, and, with the five years' franchise plus restrictions, only two and one-quarter per cent. Without these restrictions the seven years' franchise would have admitted twenty-seven per cent., and the five years' forty-one per cent. But President Kruger has affirmed that they never meant to give a general franchise, but only to receive those that could be "trusted." Dr. Leyds says: "Every fair-minded man will admit that it was impossible to grant the franchise to Uitlanders." And Du Plessis (p. 95) says: "In my mind, while our Government ought, the sooner the better, to reform the electoral law, never should any Englishman, remaining one of that nation, have a vote in our State affairs." And again: "Seeing what is the character and political tendency of the English element, I should be inclined to say, 'Never give them the vote."" But it is often said, Why should they ask the vote? They are there to make money, and, when they have succeeded, will leave the country again, and therefore cannot have its true interests at heart.

This is certainly not true of the majority. They are there with their families, and intend to make the country their home. Sir A. Milner only asked the franchise after five years' domicile. The test would be quite sufficient to decide between a migratory and fixed population. The fact that they have already obtained by purchase more than half the land of the Transvaal proves that they are not merely a fugitive or migratory population.

Evidently, therefore, the justification of the American Revolution applies to the war in South Africa. There is taxation without representation, carried to its extreme issues.

But it has been asked, "What right had England to interfere?" If her subjects did not like their treatment in the Transvaal, they could leave it and go elsewhere. The answer might be the same as is given for interference in the case of Cuba "humanitarian." And no one can read the past history of the treatment of the natives in the Transvaal without being

convinced that the humanitarian plea is amply justified. Many of these colored people were British subjects, protected under the Convention; taxpayers, but refused all the rights to which they had been accustomed in their own country. They were not permitted to walk on the sidepaths; to engage in the smallest commercial transactions; to own a yard of land in a country formerly their own; to effect a legal marriage or to receive any assistance for the education of their children; and compelled to comply with the provisions of a Pass Law which to many of them was an impossibility, and subject to the most brutal treatment for failure. Surely the cry of humanity should be heard here. And, for long, many of the natives have been crying to God for redemption, as the Israelites did of old.

President Burger, the predecessor of President Kruger, said on March 3, 1877 : “I would rather be a policeman under a strong government than President of such a State. It is you you members of the Raad, the Boers who have lost the country, who have sold your independence for a soupe (drink). You have ill-treated the natives, you have shot them down, you have sold them into slavery, and now you have to pay the penalty."

But the right of interference is based on stronger ground. Any one who will read the past history of the Transvaal will be able to see that England has had a historical justification. What was the condition of things in 1877 which led to English annexation of the country? The government was insolvent; heavily indebted, with only twelve shillings and sixpence in the treasury; official salaries long unpaid, the Boers refusing to pay taxes, with no power strong enough to compel them; one hundred square miles of the country already laid waste by Kaffir tribes; a war with Secokoni, in which the Boers had been defeated, had refused to fight any longer, and had retired to their own homes, Cetewayo with his immense hordes threatening to destroy them. Under these circumstances 3,000 out of a possible 8,000 Boers presented a petition to the English Representative praying for annexation to England. annexation to England. To that petition the Volksraad offered no objection, and many of the officials were in its favor. That there was practically no objection

from any quarter is proved by the fact that the English flag was raised by Sir Theophilus Shepstone without a single soldier and with only twenty policemen, and that all the officials (including Paul Kruger) except General Joubert took positions under the English Government. Now in four years the State debts were paid and the country made solvent. Under improved government, immigration to a considerable extent helped in making the country prosperous. At a cost of $30,000,000 the power of Cetewayo and Secokoni was destroyed. All the difficulties which had produced collapse of the government were removed. Then the Boers demanded back their independence. They fought for it. Ultimately it was granted; but under conditions. These were embodied in the Conventions of 1881 and 1884. They involved the continued paramountcy of England, and endeavored to provide for the fair treatment of British residents in the Transvaal. President Kruger invited the British to come and settle in his country under promise of equal rights and privileges in every respect with his own burghers. Now, the Convention, if violated, abrogated itself. The conditions of independence disobeyed called for and justified the interference of the country that had granted it. That the Conventions have been violated in letter and still more in spirit is indisputable, and therefore, from that standpoint, England was bound in honor to intervene.

But, again, it is represented that a brave and small nation is fighting for its "freedom and independence" against a strong and powerful nation, and sympathy should go with the weak. But what is meant by the expression? Naturally, we answer, the republican ideals of "liberty, equality, fraternity." But that is not the Boer conception. It is something fundamentally different. The Transvaal government is an oligarchy, not a republic. Its conception of freedom has been inherited from two hundred years' contact with inferior races. It is predominance, not equality; the right to hold all other nations in a subject condition. One of their greatest advocates has stated publicly: "If equal rights to all white people were conceded, those whose sympathies were with the Republics would stand solidly together

and make the government of South Africa impossible." On the contrary, the fundamental policy of the English has been : "Equal rights for all classes of civilized men, from the Zambesi to Cape Town." Nothing for the British that is not for the Boer.

And this has been fully exemplified in Cape Colony. In 1872 representative government was granted when the Boers were in a large majority; which practically meant the handing over of the controlling influence in the government to them. No law could pass without their consent. In court and Parliament both languages were placed on an equal footing.

On the other hand, in the Transvaal English is in no respect recognized. Every legal document must be in Dutch. The Landrost of Johannesburg and the Second Public Prosecutor were both fined, just before the outbreak of war, for permitting a witness to be examined in English.

But, after all, I am not prepared to admit that the above would justify a bloody and disastrous war, if it stands alone. But the contention of England is that it does not. The English maintain that not England but the Transvaal is responsible for the present conflict; that for many years past the Boers have been animated by the strenuous determination to eliminate the Imperial factor in the first place from the Transvaal, and, in the second, from the whole of South Africa. They point to the Boers' enormous accumulation of armaments; to the transformation of Pretoria into a huge arsenal surrounded with forts; to the building of a fort at Johannesburg, dominating an unarmed population; to the extent to which the loyalty of the Colonial Dutch had been undermined, as witnessed by the fact that 13,000 of them became rebels and joined the Transvaal forces. They remind us that, after negotiations had closed, Lord Salisbury offered to reopen them in the hope of a peaceful settlement, and that a request was sent to Pretoria to that end; but the only answer received was an insulting ultimatum that no nation could honorably have accepted; that the Boers commenced the war when the English were entirely unprepared, and that they invaded and annexed English territory. All this the English point to as confirmatory of the

above propositions. But they have much historical evidence besides, which they consider absolutely conclusive. A few specimens I give to your readers-only premising that there is an abundance more of a similar character. This evidence points to the existence of a dream which, when the gold-mines were discovored and supplied the sinews of war, was translated into "something more than a dream."

In 1876 President Burger, on visiting Holland, said: "In that tar-off country the inhabitants still dream of a future in which the people of Holland will recover their former greatness." He was convinced that within half a century there would be in South Africa "a population of eight millions, all speaking the Dutch language, and all extending the glory of Holland."

President Brand, about the same time, speaking of Lord Carnarvon's federation policy, said: "His great scheme is a United South Africa under the British flag. He dreams of it; so do I, but under the flag of South Africa."

The watchword adopted in the Boers' manifesto at the revolt of 1881 was, "Africa for the Africanders."

Du Plessis (p. 20) says: Never forget, young Africanders, how the English dominion was to your fathers as the kingdom of Egypt. Keep now from English ways; so in time, under God's blessing, shall the number of your people who possess the land be increased tenfold, and it shall be for the Africander nation to rule over it, with a confederation of United States of South Africa strong enough to defend it, not only against the mighty British Empire, but against any European power."

John Mackenzie, one of the most soberminded and level-headed of men, says, in speaking of the Boer revolt of 1881 ("Austral Africa," Vol. II., p. 438, 439): "The Transvaal rising was not dictated, as was supposed in England, by love of freedom or preference for republicanism rather than a limited monarchy. It was inspired by men who were planning a policy which should banish the English language and English influence from South Africa." "Their action was a blow directly dealt against the freedom, progress, and union of Europeans in South Africa."

Reitz, State Secretary of the Transvaal, said in 1888: "My fervent desire is that I may yet live to see the day when the United States of South Africa shall have become an accomplished fact." He would recognize England as the "only European power which should have a say in South African matters south of the Zambesi-I mean, along the coast, outside our borders." "Africa for the Africanders means Africa for the Dutch majority if the rest of the British Empire can be kept out of the scale."

Mr. Cronwright Schreiner, at present visiting all parts of England and speaking as Boer advocate, said in 1893, when speaking of the Dutch Bond in the Cape Colony: "In fact, the Bond has sacrificed the welfare of the country for years to the selfish attainment of one object—namely, the supremacy of the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of the Colony, regardless of the rights of others."

Such testimonies could be multiplied indefinitely. They prove, I think, the propositions laid down, and show that the Dutch, not the English, have been the aggressors; that the former, not the latter, are responsible for the war.

of

And I believe it is a war of liberation "fought in freedom's holy cause" for the permanent establishment in South Africa of the true republican principles liberty, equality, fraternity. Whatever form the settlement may take, it will certainly widen the bounds of freedom and prove ultimately a blessing for all classes alike. Not ten per cent. of the Boers have been enriched by their past policy; ninety per cent. have been living in abject poverty, in the richest country, in proportion to size and population, in the world. At present the official class receives in salaries enough to pension every male Boer in the Transvaal with $200 a year. This will not continue, but, with equal rights for all classes, all will be able to share in the wealth of the country. Just as in the South there are many who now rejoice in the results of the Civil War in America, so there will come a time when the white races and nationalities of South Africa will be fused into one and all will rejoice in the freedom and equality purchased at so great a price and become the common inheritance of all,

arrived on the scene just as the corpse was being washed. Out in the open air upon the ground and stark naked, the body was being alternately drenched with boiling water and scrubbed with stones. A crowd of fifty or sixty persons were listlessly squatting round, while others were boiling meat in huge copper pots, and still others were building a rude chair, raised about three feet from the ground, under the broad eaves of the hut. After the scrubbing process was over, the dead woman was seated in the chair and tied in place by a band of bark around the mouth and another band around the waist. A lighted cigarette was then placed between the fingers of the corpse, and a small fire of pine wood made under the chair. As soon as this was accomplished the feast began. Great hunks of pork and beef and baskets of camotes were thrown upon the fern-strewed ground; and, with that awful, ghastly thing presiding, men, women, and babes commenced to gorge.

Now and then some thoughtful one rose and relighted the corpse's cigarette, but otherwise there was no notice taken of it. Greased to the elbows and with shiny faces, the guests continued their gluttony, with short lulls for more cooking, the entire day. In the evening great jars of milk-white tapuy or rice-wine were brought, and a kind of kangaroodance was executed to the sound of the tomtom and a weird droning by the women. By eight o'clock every one was comfortably drunk, and I heard the noise of their singing and shouting long after I had gone to bed. This particular feast lasted three days, each day being a repetition of the first. The woman was then buried under her own doorstep. When a rich Igorrote dies, however, the feasting frequently lasts for a month, and sometimes three months. The length of the wake depends wholly upon the number of cattle and hogs the dead man possessed. The second function of this kind I saw was being held round a dead man who had been presiding then thirty-one days. Time and the pine smoke had blackened and shriveled the corpse considerably, and the odor prevented me from getting very close. The long-drawn-out feast, however, was going on with as much gusto, apparently, as ever. The last rite performed over a dead man, if he be of any

importance, is to bring a horse to the side of the grave and kill the animal as the body is placed in the earth. In this way the dead Igorrote is provided with transportation to the other world, and his friends are given a farewell banquet.

The marriage customs of the Igorrotes are exceedingly simple. The parents choose whom their children shall marry when the latter are two or three years old. A hog or a bullock, given by the father of the boy, frequently binds the agreement, and from that time the children are looked upon as husband and wife. They are not permitted to live together, however, until they are from twelve to fourteen years of age. At that time the inevitable feast constitutes the ceremony. Though polygamy is not against their laws, the Igorrotes seldom indulge in more than one wife. In their relations with the opposite sex they compare very favorably with the more civilized Filipinos. If a man is tired of his wife or does not find her a good worker, he may divorce her and choose another mate; but divorces, nevertheless, are rare. Feasting is the main, nay, one may say the only, enjoyment the Igorrote possesses. For this he hoards his money, burying it in the ground for safety, and by this he punctuates each event in his existence. The Igorrote, though he fears, and, when forced, obeys, foreign authority, willingly acknowledges none but that of his own tribe. He has an unbounded and curious respect for those of his tribe who have become rich. He voluntarily elects such persons as his chief or presidente, and himself becomes a willing slave, obeying his self-made master in all things without recompense, though frequently refusing to so much as lift his finger for another's money. Notwithstanding his admiration for riches, he seldom cares to work for pay, and, unless his needs are pressing or his presidente orders, he will sell nothing. Since nature and his hard-working wife provide him. with all necessary things, his indolence and carelessness are beyond the ken of white men. If the Igorrote is to be civilized, it will not be of his own volition, but because civilization is forced upon him.

Passing through Loo, we crossed the Benguet border and entered the province of Lepanto. Several gold-mines of the same formation as I had previously seen