who under the cloak of progress and favour to the government view obtained their seats was too weak to cope with the skill of the and granted leave to the acting president to carry out measures opposed to my policy native lands were and given out to a few who held large numbers of claims to lands which were destined for citizens and so a war was prepared for me on my return from europe which i could not this extract is interesting as showing the state of feeling existing between the president and his officers previous to the outbreak of the war it also shows the how entirely he was out of sympathy wi h the citizens seeing that as soon as his back was turned they with mr and paul at their head at once all the little good he had done when mr got to england he found that city would have nothing whatever to say to his railway scheme in holland however he succeeded in getting j of the � he wished to borrow at a high rate of interest and by passing a bond on five hundred farms this money was immediately invested in railway plant which when it arrived at bay had to be to pay the freight on it and that was the end of the bay railway scheme except that the f is i believe still owing to the confiding in holland on his return to the the president was well received and for a month or so all went smoothly but the relations of the with the surrounding native tribes had by this time become so bad that an explosion was imminent somewhere in the year the raised the price of passes under the pass law by which every native travelling through the territory was made to pay from i to � in case of non payment the native was made subject to a fine of from � to � io and to a beating of from ten to twenty five lashes he was also to go into service for three months and have a thereof for which he must pay five shillings the object of the law being to obtain a supply of labour this was done in spite of the earnest protest of the president who gave the distinctly to understand that by accepting this law they would in point of fact events the concluded with the chiefs on the south western borders it is not clear however if this pass law ever came into force it is to be hoped it did for even under the old law natives were treated by who would pretend that they were by government to collect the tax the result being that the unfortunate was frequently obliged to pay twice over natives had such a horror of the pass laws of the country that when travelling to the diamond fields to work they would frequently go round some hundreds of miles rather than pass through the that the should have thought it necessary to such a law in order that the farmers should obtain a supply of labour in a territory that had nearly a million of native inhabitants who unlike the are willing to work if only they meet with decent treatment is in itself an instructive on the feelings existing between master and servant but besides the general quarrel with the race in its which the always have on hand they had just then several individual in each of which there the possibilities of disturbance to begin with their relations with by no means during mr absence the government then under the of p j sent a very stern message � a message that gives the reader the idea that mr was ready to enforce it with ten thousand men after making various statements and demands with reference to the tribe the disputed boundary line c it ends thus � n the although the government of the south african has never wished and does not now desire that serious and should exist between you and them yet it is not the less of the greatest consequence and importance for you earnestly to weigh these matters and risks and to satisfy them the more so if you on your side al o wish that peace and friendship shall be maintained between you and us the secretary for native for comments on this message in these words the tone of tliis message to is not very friendly it has the look of an and if the government of the were in circumstances different to what it is the message would suggest an intention to if the demands it are not at once complied with but i am inclined to the opinion that no such intention exists and that the of a copy of the message to the government is intended as a that the government has proclaimed the territory hitherto in dispute between it and the to be territory and that the to occupy it tn the marked out by a decision known as the in which lieutenant governor of at the request of both parties laid down the boundary line between the and certain native tribes the government carried it with a yet higher hand as the natives of those districts being comparatively were less likely to resist on the i th august acting president issued a by which a line was laid down far to the southward of that marked out by mr events preceding the and consequently included more territory within the elastic boundaries of the a government notice of the same date all claiming lands now declared to belong to the to send in their claims to be settled by a land commission on the th march another chief in the same neighbourhood writes to the lieutenant governor of west in these terms � my friend � i wish to you with the doings of some people connected 