The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1900-05-03
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DISPUTED QUESTIONS.

right to make any laws they see fit,
and they who do not like them need
not go or live there.
That is very we'll, but we must take
into consideration that these laws are
the result of very much codifcation
since 1883, when "our uncle" Paul
Kruger, who then became president,
had proclamatiOns published in all the
English and some other newspapers,
inviting capital and labor to come to
the Transvaal, offering them great in
ducements to develop the resources of
the country which he believed to be
hidden within the bowels of the earth.
and knew too that the Beers were not
equal to it.
The laws at that time were very
much different in all respects to what
they are today. The cause of the
present war is the same as that which
prompted our forefathers to declare
their independence from the British
crown; and that is, taxation without
representation" The outlanders we're
not allowed to bring any arms or am
munition with them to their new
homes, and they had no desire to-;
neither were they permitted to carry
any except in the Boer army, and when
affairs had taken such turn as to be
an absolute detriment to their lives,
liberty and happiness, they were utter
ly helpless: and so in their desperation
they turned to England for redress of
their just grievances, petitionlng the
government of Great Britain to inter
cede in their behalf, which it sought to
do through diplomatic channels, but
"Oom" would not have it, hence the
clash
The exorbitant tax placed upon
everything that appertains to mines
and mining effects the Outlanders ex-
clusively and upon them the burden of
carrying on the government falls, with
out being allotted a proportionate
amount of the appropriations for the
improvement of their localities and
to their benefit.
Now, some say, it is the rich, the
owners and monopolists of those mines
against whom that tax is directed: but
we very we'll know that the capitalists
Invariably emerge from these diff
culties scathless and that they take it
out of the poor, those who perform the
labor. Their scanty and meager wages
are reduced and they are forced to
carry the burden of such we'll intended
and benevolent acts.
It is also claimed that these arbi-
trary and oppressive laws are neces-
sary to guard against the capture of
the country by the outlanders; but
there is nothing to substantiate such
imaginative charges, which are put up
merely as pretext to the world at
large in justification of the robbery
and plunder that are perpetrated under
the name of law, by government
more dangerous than a monarchy,
poses as a republic. If the outlanders
had had any such designs as are
charged against them, they would have
found the ways and means by which to
prepare themselves with the necessary
paraphernalia to carry, on a war of con-
quest and they would have risen as one
against the Beers, without making any
appeals to an outside power for peace
able adjustment of the wrongs and
expressions to which they were SUBJ
jected by minority of the white in
habitants. The opportunity was Of
fered these outlanders to get away
from under the despotic power of
monarchical rule, and they embraced
it with all the zeal and ardor that their
imagination was capable of picturing
to them of free and happy life under
a republican form of government-to
borrow phrase, "a government of the