low-grade mines to pay dividends the Uitlanders would diminish freight rates on the railroads and abolish all import duties on necessaries of life, and in these demands they are likely to have the sup. port of the Transvaal Government. The agriculturists of Cape Colony and Natal, on the other hand, induced their governments, in June, 1897, to raise the railroad rate on imported grain 50 per cent. The Cape Colonists complain that under the pass law respectable colored people from their colony are required to wear badges and to be in their houses by nine o'clock at night, but the Uitlanders desire to apply the pass law more stringently. In August the Volksraad modified the pass laws by exempting ministers, teachers, and tradesmen from wearing badges, but requiring them to carry passes costing £3 a year. The Dutch Africanders of the republics as well as of the British colonies find fault with the Transvaal Government for importing from Holland men to fill Government posts and to teach in the Government schools. Yet it would be impossible to find in South Africa many persons trained to official life and capable of carrying on correspondence in English, German, and French, as well as Dutch, or teachers who can teach all those languages, as the new school law for the Witwatersrand requires. Since the Government of the Republic has agreed to grant subventions to the English schools on the Rand, the great educational grievance of the Uitlanders has dwindled to small proportions. The Government paid out £46.893 for education in 1896, and school fees and voluntary contributions amounted to £18,413, making the cost of educating an average number of 7,738 children in 395 schools £65,305, very nearly £9 per pupil. Of the total number in average attendance 93 per cent. were in the elementary grades, leaving only 7 per cent. in the intermediate schools. Only 20 per cent. received instruction in English, showing the preponderant position of Dutch as the language of the country and of the courts of law. In pursuance of a law passed in the latter part of 1896 for the education of children of poor parents and foreigners in the gold fields, the Government offered to grant £30,000 for this purpose in 1897 in the way recommended by the Superintendent of Education after consultation with a committee representing the English, French, German, American, and Dutch nationalities, on condition that Dutchspeaking children receive their education in the national language, and that the whole scheme conform to the educational laws and resolutions of the Volksraad. It is proposed to teach English-speaking and other foreign children in their own language only in the primary grades. In the middle education Dutch will continue to be the medium of instruction. The total sum appropriated for education in 1897 was £150.000, giving four times as much to Boer children as to Uitlanders. The actual proportions of the British and Africander nationalities are variously estimated. The French consul, M. Aubert, estimated the population of Johannesburg itself in 1897 at 136,000 persons, of whom 50,907 were whites. The number of actual Europeans, apart from immigrants from British South African colonies and the Orange Free State, was ascertained to be 24,489, of whom 16,265 were English, Scotch, and Irish, 3,335 Russians, 2,263 Germans, 819 Dutch, 442 French, 311 Swedes and Norwegians, 206 Italians, 139 Swiss, and 709 from other countries.

In the autumn of 1897 the Government decided to promulgate a law passed in 1896, establishing a municipality in Johannesburg, which had hitherto been held back at the request of the Uitlanders themselves, who were not satisfied with the act. Half the members of the municipal council are to

be burghers, and the burgomaster, who has the casting vote, is appointed and paid by the Government and has power to suspend the operation of any resolution deemed to be in conflict with the law of the land, the final decision resting with the Government, not with the High Court. The council has power to make regulations for safety, public order, morality, and health, to issue loans, and to enter into contracts for public works, subject to the sanction of the Government. A bill to prohibit the working of stamp mills and mines on Sunday failed to pass the Volksraad, to the disappointment of the Doppers, who charged members with receiving bribes to vote against the measure. Notwithstanding the decrease of revenue and the necessity of borrowing £600,000 to meet the year's expenses, the Volksraad increased the salaries of its members to £1,200 a year. The Uitlanders and others raised a protest against the granting of the full burgher franchise to 800 Johannesburghers who took up arms for the Republic at the time of the Jameson raid. The Volksraad adopted a motion for the alteration of the qualification of members, with a view to exclude undesirable and disloyal persons. A law introducing voting by ballot will come into force in 1898. The Volksraad resolved that no state official shall be a candidate for the presidency without first resigning office.

The commercial and financial crisis in Johannesburg, that was aggravated by the Uitlander revolution at the beginning of 1896, was rendered more formidable in 1897 by a heavy decline of mining shares in the market, and extended throughout the Transvaal, owing to the ravages of the rinderpest and scarcity in the northern districts. The primary cause was overtrading and overstocking, such as had preceded a similar crisis in 1890. The excessive competition of importers, encouraged by the unrestrained granting of credit, resulted in a commercial collapse, which involved the banks and mercantile houses of Cape Colony and Natal and reacted on the banking and mining concerns in London, depressing still more the speculative value of mining stocks. The check given to importations and mining activity affected the finances of the Transvaal Government, causing its surplus to disappear, and even necessitating recourse to temporary loans, for expenditures went on increasing and votes for the relief of burghers impoverished by the rinderpest constituted an additional drain on the treasury. There were 4,803,000 tons of ore extracted in 1896, yielding on an average a little less than half an ounce of pure gold per ton. Though this yield was slightly inferior to that of former years, it is not found that the ore of the deeper levels, except in some localities, is poorer than the surface outcroppings. The machinery represents 138,000 horse power and was valued at £5.330,000, an increase of 216 per cent. over 1895. All the Transvaal mines, gold and coal, represented at the end of 1896 a nominal capital of £67,333,000, of which only 37 per cent. had been actually invested in the purchase of the mines and plant.

An industrial commission was appointed to report to the Volksraad on the measures of relief required from the Government. This commission, which began its investigations on April 15 and made its report on Aug. 6, sifted out the practical grievances of the Uitlanders that affected the goldmining industry. There were 183 gold mines in the Transvaal in 1896, of which 79 produced gold of the total value of £8,603,821, while 104 yielded no gold, most of them being in a state of development and equipment, and only 25 companies declared dividends, the total amount being £1,718.781. The high cost of production prevented many of the

mines from paying dividends and caused some to cease operations. The commission found that whatever had been the mistakes in the past, most of the mines were controlled and engineered by financial and practical men, who devoted their time, energy, and knowledge to the interest of the mining industry, and who had introduced the latest machinery and mining appliances and the most perfect methods and processes known to science. If the Government neglected to lighten the burdens of the mining industry and refused to cooperate in devising means to work lower-grade mines at a profit, there was danger that 100 mines, which had cost from £200,000 to £500,000 to equip and develop and averaged £10,000 a month in working expenses, would have to close down, taking the annual amount of £12,000,000 out of circulation. The encouragement of agriculture would have a beneficial effect on the industry by reducing the cost of living, but the granting of concessions hampered the industrial prosperity of the colony. The question of labor was a vital one for the mines, for the cost of labor is from 50 to 60 per cent. of the total cost of production. Miners earn from £18 to £30 a month, according to ability, and these wages are not excessive, considering the cost of living at the mines. In fact, they are only sufficient to cover daily wants, and consequently it can not be expected that white laborers will establish their permanent abode in the Republic unless their position is ameliorated. The commission recommended that labor contracts signed in Europe be recognized as legal in the Transvaal, and that the cost of living be reduced for the white miners by removing all import duties from necessaries of life and transporting these to the mines at the cheapest possible rates. In respect to Kaffir labor, the industry must draw its chief supply from the Portuguese territory on the east coast, and the commission suggested that fares to the mines on the Kaffirsper Railroad be reduced by two thirds, the difference to be recovered from the laborers on the return journey, and that premiums be paid to Kaffir chiefs for the supply of laborers. The present requirement of the Witwatersrand mines is 70,000 black laborers, and within three years 100,000 will be needed on account of the development of deeplevel mines. It is recommended that the native commissioners receive extra pay for the purpose of visiting Kaffir chiefs in the Transvaal to obtain laborers for them, and that laborers so obtained be conducted to the mines under supervision and lodged in compounds on the way. The Minister of Mines has recommended a law compelling all idle natives to work. The illicit sale of liquor to the natives at the mines constitutes a real grievance, and a much stronger application of the liquor law of 1896 is required. It is also desirable that the number of licenses be gradually reduced. Transit duties are unfair and ought to be abolished. Yearly the Republic pays £600,000 to the neighboring British colonies. It is recommended that the Government negotiate to have these duties abolished, previously removing its own duties on goods destined for the north. All import duties on food stuffs should be removed, as it is impossible to supply the population of the Republic from the products of local agriculture. The price paid at the mines for explosives of all kinds is twice as high as it might be, and the excess charge of 408. to 458. per case goes to enrich individuals for the most part resident in Europe. The commission recommends that the monopoly be canceled, if it can be done legally, and that in the mean time the Government avail itself of its reserved right to take into its own hands the importation of dynamite and other explosives and supply them to the mines sub

ject to a duty of not more than 20s. per case; also that the manufacture of explosives in the Republic be allowed and protected by the same import duty, and that the importation of detonators be free.

On the matter of railroads, taking the gross revenue from traffic at about £2,000,000, as in 1896, the commission advised the Government to secure such a lowering of rates as will reduce the railroad earnings by £500,000, or 25 per cent., and not to proceed to the expropriation of the Netherlands company if such reduction can be obtained on its line. The reduction ought to be largest on the coal traffic, and the facilities for the delivery of coal and goods in general should be greatly improved on the Netherlands line. The greatest facilities should, moreover, be given to the transport of all agricultural produce at the lowest prices, and by night trains if required, to the principal markets of the Republic.

To check thefts of gold and amalgam, which are found to be on the increase, the commission recommended a stringent law on the model of the illicit diamond law of Kimberley. The pass law might be improved, but what is really required is that it should be applied more stringently, and it is suggested that its execution be placed under the control of a local board on the gold fields and the administration transferred from the Ministry of Mines to the Superintendent of Natives. The commission recommended the appointment of a board or commission in Johannesburg, consisting of 5 members nominated by the Government and 4 deputed by the mine associations and merchants of the city.

The people representing the mining interests of the Rand signed a petition urging expropriation of the Netherlands Railroad, abolition of the dynamite monopoly, vigorous administration of the liquor law, protection against gold thefts by a special detective force, better enforcement of the pass law and facilities for dealing with natives obtaining badges and arresting deserters, native locations for the procurement of a regular supply of labor, and a reduction of customs duties in order to cheapen the general cost of living. The Volksraad declined to receive this petition, as it has a rule forbidding the acceptance of memorials comprising more than one subject. It has been computed that under favorable laws the mining industry might save 40 per cent. in explosive gelatin and dynamite, 31 per cent. in coal, 15 per cent in transport, 50 per cent in native labor, and 37 per cent. in white labor, representing a total annual loss of £1,600,000. The wages of white labor, including all employees from the manager down to the gangers in charge of the native boys, form on the average 30 per cent. of the total cost of production; native labor, 28 per cent.; explosives, 10 per cent.; coal, 8 per cent.; stores, 19 per cent.: general charges, 5 per cent. There are about 8,000 employees in the mines, receiving about £24 per month, while the black laborers, who outnumber the whites eight or ten to one, cost £4 a month each, including pay and food. Dynamite, which an American firm offered to deliver for 428. 7d. per case of 50 pounds, costs from £5 to £5 158. Coal costs 88. per ton at the pit's mouth, and 20s. 8d. in the gold fields, about 30 miles distant. The Netherlands Railroad, with a capital of £1,165,000, earned £1,330,000 in 1896 over and above working expenses and the guaranteed interest on its loans. Of the profits the state received £514,000 as its share. The state can expropriate the railroad after a year's notice, and the company bargained for an extension of the concession for ten years as the price of a reduction in tariffs. In September the Natal Government removed most of the transit duties, practically rendering Durban a free port.

The South African Inquiry.—The parliamentary investigation of the Jameson raid promised by Mr. Chamberlain was put off for a year, and finally, at the beginning of the session of 1897, he moved for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the origin and circumstances of the incursion into the South African Republic by an armed force, and into the administration of the British South Africa Company, and to report thereon, and further to report what alterations were desirable in the government of the territories under the control of the company. Before the inquiry began Cecil Rhodes returned to South Africa, and there received ovations from the South African League and other partisans of imperialism, while a large part of the Afrkiander population showed disapprobation by counter-demonstrations. Mr. Rhodes confessed that he had furnished money and arms for the rising in Johannesburg, and stationed the forces of the South Africa Company on the border for the purpose of invading the South African Republic and aiding in bringing about a revolution. Telegrams that were published showed that the design was to raise the British flag. He pleaded in justification that the Boer Government intended to introduce foreign, specifically German, influence into South Africa. The English directors of the company were not cognizant of the plot, nor was it shown that Mr. Chamberlain or Lord Rosmead was aware of it, though Dr. Rutherfoord Harris, the secretary of Mr. Rhodes, testified that in an interview with Mr. Chamberlain he spoke guardedly of an expected revolution in Johannesburg and of the desirability of there being a force on the border, but that Mr. Chamberlain demurred to the turn that the conversation had taken. Mr. Chamberlain hastened to give his version of the conversation, which was that Dr. Harris had offered to make a confidential communication relative to proceedings in Johannesburg, but that he had at once stopped him and refused to receive any confidential information. Letters of Mr. Fairfield, since deceased, who had to do with these matters in the Colonial Office, showed that he was partly informed of the revolutionary purposes of the Cape Premier. Sir John Willoughby and other British officers who took part in the raid were hoodwinked by Jameson and Rhodes into believing that the British Government was secretly abetting the design of overthrowing the Pretoria Government and annexing the Transvaal. The convicted officers were released before serving their full term of imprisonment, but they were deprived of their commissions. Sir John Willoughby pleaded with the War Office to restore the junior officers to the army, saying that he had guaranteed their commissions, having been informed by Dr. Jameson that the expedition was undertaken with the knowledge and assent of the imperial authorities. Other reasons for his belief that it was so Sir John Willoughby declined to tell the committee, on public grounds. There were people in England who knew of the plot, but whose names Mr. Rhodes refused to reveal. A number of cablegrams, believed to implicate men of high station, perhaps the heir to the throne, he and, after his departure, his counsel, B. F. Hawksley, refused to produce, nor did the committee exercise its power to compel their production. These telegrams Mr. Rhodes had in the previous year exhibited to Mr. Chamberlain; Sir William Vernon Harcourt was also aware of their contents, and it was stated by one of the counsel that it was owing to reasons of state that they were not made public. Henry Labouchere, after being challenged by Alfred Beit and Dr. Harris to prove his statements that the raid was accompanied by profitable bull and bear operations in mining stocks by its promoters, withdrew his accusations

because the stock brokers on whose evidence he relied refused to testify. On account of the missing telegrams Mr. Blake declined to join in the committee's report, while Mr. Labouchere gave a minority report. The report of the committee exonerates the directors of the British South Africa Company from complicity in the raid, with the exception of Alfred Beit and Rochfort Maguire, and with the further exception of Lord Grey, about whom the committee could form no opinion, owing to his absence in South Africa; but the committee considered that the board, in giving to Mr. Rhodes power of attorney to do what he liked without consulting his colleagues and committing to him the whole of the administration and everything connected with Rhodesia, did not fulfill the objects for which it was created nor offer sufficient security against the misuse of the powers delegated to the Chartered Company by the Crown. The committee found that grave discontent existed in Johannesburg, but that, whatever justification the Uitlanders may have had for action, there was none for the conduct of Mr. Rhodes, who as Prime Minister of Cape Colony, managing director of the British South Africa Company, and director of the De Beers and Gold Fields Companies had used his position and those interests to promote his policy in subsidizing, organizing, and stimulating an armed insurrection against the Government of the South African Republic, and had employed the forces of the Chartered Company to support such a revolution. He seriously embarrassed both the imperial and colonial governments, and his proceedings resulted in the invasion of a friendly state and in breach of the obligation in respect to the right of self-government of the South African Republic under the conventions. Although Dr. Jameson at the last moment invaded the Transvaal without his authority, it was always a part of the plan that those forces should be used in the Transvaal in support of an insurrection. Such a policy once embarked upon inevitably involved Mr. "Rhodes in grave breaches of duty to those to whom he owed allegiance. He deceived the High Commissioner, he concealed his views from his colleagues in the colonial ministry and from the board of the British South Africa Company, and led his subordinates to believe that his plans were approved by his superiors. The committee expressed in conclusion an absolute and unqualified condemnation of the raid and of the plans which made it possible. The result caused for the time being grave injury to British influence in South Africa. Public confidence was shaken, race feeling embittered, and serious difficulties were created with neighboring states.

Diplomatic Disputes.-In October, 1895, the Government of the South African Republic closed the drifts which constituted the two ports of entry on the Vaal river to oversea goods in order to stop the illicit importation of arms, although the pretext put forward was that the Cape railroads were damaging other railroads leading into the Transvaal. Sir Jacobus de Wet, the British consul general, denounced this as an unfriendly act intended to divert trade from the Cape ports. W. P. Schreiner, then the Cape Attorney-General, considered it a violation of the London convention. When the British Government protested on this ground, President Krüger said that if the exception of colonial goods made the closing of the drifts a violation of the convention he would shut out colonial goods as well. Mr. Chamberlain telegraphed that the extension of the proclamation to colonial goods was almost an act of hostility, and he informed the Cape ministry that the British Government was determined to obtain a compliance with its demands, even if it should be necessary to

send a warlike expedition into the Transvaal, the cost of which the Cape Government would be expected to share. The Cape ministry acquiesced, agreeing to bear half the total expense and to furnish a fair contingent of the fighting force. The Prime Minister, Mr. Rhodes, believed that he could count on a majority of the Cape Parliament to support such action. In response to the threatening message of Mr. Chamberlain, the Transvaal Government opened the drifts on Nov. 6, 1895, and announced that they would not again be closed without consultation with the British Government, but protested in a subsequent communication that it had a right to regulate the ports of entrance, offering to submit the question to arbitration. The Cape ministers requested that the assurances they had given with reference to hostile action be regarded as strictly confidential. Nor was it ever known how ready the Cape Government had been to go to war with the Transvaal until Mr. Merriman on April 6, 1897, demanded the production of the papers in the Cape Parliament in order to show that the Rhodes ministry promised on a paltry matter of trade to support with arms an ultimatum of the Imperial Government.

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When the British Minister for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain, finally proposed a parliamentary investigation of the Jameson raid and the South Africa Company he declared that the situation in South Africa had not improved, that President Krüger, though he had stated that his desire was to heal sores, to forget, and to forgive," still withheld the promised full and favorable consideration to the friendly representations of the British Government, and that recent laws of the Volksraad were contrary to the London convention and would create, if they were enforced, a situation that would require "all our prudence, all our impartiality, and all our patience." The British Secretary of State affirmed that the raid was indissolubly connected with the discontent in Johannesburg, which was founded on the grievances of the Uitlanders, and any inquiry into the origin of the raid would be a sham unless it went carefully into this question of grievances and determined how far these afforded a justification for that discontent and agitation in Johannesburg which made the raid possible.

In consequence of the Jameson raid and the Johannesburg revolution the Volksraad had passed a law for the expulsion of any foreigner who by word or writing excites to disobedience or transgression of the law or takes any steps dangerous to public peace and order. Another law empowered the President to prohibit the circulation of printed or published matter the contents of which are in his judgment contrary to good morals or a danger to the peace and order in the Republic. There was also a law establishing a censorship over press telegrams. Another law required aliens traveling in the South African Republic to take out passports. An alien immigrants law, based more upon the economic conditions prevailing in South Africa, required of aliens intending to settle in the Republic that they should bring a certificate from their home authorities that they possessed the means or the ability to support themselves and would not become a burden upon the community.

Mr. Chamberlain found in these new laws violations of the convention of 1884. The alien immigrants law, he said, imposed a new condition on the entrance of British subjects into the Transvaal besides that of conforming to the laws of the Republic, which alone was defined in the London convention, and this new condition it would be difficult for many of the poorer though perfectly respectable immigrants to satisfy. The other alien

law imposed burdens upon aliens traveling or residing in the Republic in excess of the condition laid down in the convention. The State Secretary, Dr. Leyds, contended that these were police laws, but this Mr. Chamberlain would not admit. The State Secretary wrote that the Government of the South African Republic would be grateful if the British Government would propose some other practical measure for the exclusion of undesirable immigrants. Eventually the immigrant law was repealed without any admission that it was an infraction of the convention, after an agreement with the governments of Natal and Cape Colony, in conformity with which the latter enacted in the summer a law restricting immigration. Mr. Chamberlain, in the correspondence, alleged six violations of the convention. A treaty of extradition with the Netherlands, signed on Nov. 9, 1895, had not been submitted to the British Government for approval until attention was called to the omission after the exchange of ratifications. The extradition treaty with Portugal, signed on Nov. 3, 1893, had not yet been submitted for the Queen's approval. On Sept. 30, 1896, the South African Republic, without waiting for the invitation of the British Government, formally communicated to the Swiss Government its act of accession to the Geneva convention. The aliens expulsion law was, like the immigration law, declared to be contrary to the convention. Like exception was taken to the press law, and when the "Critic" and "Star," the Uitlander papers, were suppressed, the British Government demanded explanations.

The claim of the South African Republic upon the British South Africa Company for damages on account of Dr. Jameson's raid amounted to £1,677,938, of which £677,938 represented expenses connected with putting commandos in the field and compensation for the commandeered burghers, and £1,000,000 represented "moral or intellectual damage." President Krüger insisted on the right of the South African Republic to submit to arbitration the question of indemnity and other matters of controversy. Mr. Chamberlain asserted in Parliament that arbitration on the convention was out of the question, such being unprecedented between a suzerain and a subordinate power. This fresh assumption of suzerainty, which was expunged from the convention of 1884 by the omission of the clause contained in the convention of 1881, raised a storm of protests in Pretoria, and drew from President Krüger an explicit denial that the relation of suzerainty still subsisted.

Treaty with the Orange Free State.-In view of the menacing attitude of the British Government, President Krüger negotiated in Bloemfontein a defensive alliance between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State and the preliminary arrangements for a closer political union between the two Boer republics. One article of the treaty provides that the burghers of each state are to have the franchise in the other. If either state is attacked the other agrees to come to its assistance with its full fighting force, which would give a combined army of about 44.000 men between the ages of eighteen and fifty, the Transvaal contributing 27,000 and the Orange Free State 17,000. This treaty was ratified by the two Volksraads. Each state undertakes to help the other whenever its independence is threatened either from without or from within. Interstate laws about commando and other subjects connected with the alliance shall be passed by the legislatures of both countries. A federal council shall be created, consisting of 10 delegates, half of them nominated by the President of the Orange Free State and half by the President of the South African Republic, and this council is

to sit every year, alternately in Bloemfontein and Pretoria, for the discussion of subjects of common interest, especially the mutual protection, the commercial relations, and proposals touching the federal union of the two states and objections that may be raised thereto, recommendations tending to favor the unification of the laws of the two countries, and such other questions as the respective governments deem proper to submit. The State Presidents and their representatives shall always be able to take part in the deliberations. The decisions of this council of delegates are to be reported to the representatives of the two governments, to be submitted to the respective Volksraads for their action. The ultimate object of the new political treaty is to create a federal union between the two states.

Warlike Preparations. At the same time that Mr. Chamberlain was demanding the repeal of Transvaal laws and discovering a series of breaches of the London convention in the acts of President Krüger's Government and defiance in his protestations, a menacing naval demonstration was made in Delagoa Bay, where a squadron of British vessels suddenly gathered in April without any known cause or objeet, unless it was to intimidate the President and Volksraad in the matter of the immigration bill. Mr. Goschen declared that they were there as a guarantee that British supremacy would be maintained. The sum of £200,000 was put into the military budget for an increase of the forces in South Africa, and it was announced that their strength would be permanently increased. The garrisons were largely augmented during the spring, and troops were stationed near the frontiers. The reenforcements consisted of 115 officers and 2,700 men, making the total force of imperial troops in South Africa 545 officers and 8,240 men. Meanwhile, the Transvaal Government proceeded with the construction of the two forts at Pretoria, and imported Krupp field and fortress guns, Maxims, hundreds of thousands of rifles, and millions of cartridges.

Cape Colony decided on the recommendation of English military experts to create a permanent military force of 11,500 men, including the already existing Cape mounted rifles, numbering 1,100 men. The colony is to be divided into 5 military districts, and service is to be compulsory on all white males between eighteen and sixty years of age. The forts are to be provided with heavy guns, and a burgher reserve of 2,000 men is to be formed.

The warlike feeling had subsided in England and South Africa when Sir Alfred Milner arrived in Cape Town in May to succeed Lord Rosmead, formerly Sir Hercules Robinson, as Governor of the Cape and High Commissioner for South Africa. The Transvaal Volksraad repealed the aliens bill on May 6, not in acknowledgment of an infraction of the London convention, but as an act of deference to the wishes of the Orange Free State and the British colonies. The outcome of the peace debate in the Cape Parliament showed that a forward policy would receive little support. On May 17 the British fleet in Delagoa Bay was dispersed.

On the occasion of the Queen's jubilee President Krüger ordered the release of W. D. Davies and Capt. Woolls Sampson, the two Uitlander prisoners remaining in Pretoria jail, who had declined to make application for pardon, holding that they were entitled to the protection of the British Government, which was promised by Sir Hercules Robinson when they laid down their arms, but was afterward denied to them. The attitude of the British Secretary of the Colonies, though less aggressive, did not grow less imperialistic. After the South African Committee made its report he said: "Though Mr. Rhodes was in about as great a fault

as a politician or a statesman can be, nothing has been proved, and, in my opinion, there is nothing which affects Mr. Rhodes's position as a man of honor."

Swaziland. In accordance with the Swaziland settlements, arranged between the British and Transvaal governments on Dec. 10, 1894, and ratified on Feb. 14, 1895, by the Volksraad, Swaziland, which was declared independent in the convention of 1884 and placed by the convention of 1893, in respect to the white settlers, under a Swaziland government committee, was finally placed under the protection and adininistration of the South African Republic. The territory is not to be incorporated in the Transvaal, and the natives retain their right to govern themselves after their laws and customs, but after three years they must pay a hut tax to the Boer Government and other taxes borne by the Swazis within the limits of the Transvaal. Customs duties shall not exceed those of the Transvaal. English and other white settlers can obtain full burgher rights. The sale of intoxicants to natives is forbidden. Swaziland is about 8,500 square miles in extent, with a native population estimated between 40,000 and 70,000 and 750 white settlers. The people are closely akin to the Zulus, and speak a different dialect of the same language. Ngwane, or Ubunu, the paramount chief, has an army of 18,000 men. The local revenue for 1896 was estimated at £3,000, the expenditure at £40,650. British South Africa Company's Territory.Rhodesia has proved disappointing as a gold-mining country, although indications of gold have been found over wide areas in both Mashonaland and Matabeleland, and innumerable claims have been filed and shafts have been sunk at Umtali, Salisbury, Victoria, Buluwayo, Gwelo, Tati, and other places. The whole amount of gold taken out from the beginning till 1897 has been less than 6,000 ounces, worth about £20,000. Machinery has been ordered, but the cost of transportation has been prohibitory hitherto. The railroad from Beira was completed to Massi Kessi in the beginning of 1897, and was expected to reach Salisbury by the middle of 1898. The railroad from Cape Colony through Bechuanaland to Buluwayo was opened on Nov. 4, 1897. Coal has been found near Salisbury, about 60 miles west of Buluwayo, and in Bechuanaland. The agricultural resources of the country are excellent, and water is abundant. But agriculture must depend entirely on the development of the goldmining industry. Drought and locusts have affected agriculture here, as in other parts of South Africa, and there are peculiar endemic diseases that interfere with the raising of horses, cattle, sheep, and poultry. Malarial fevers make the low country almost uninhabitable for white men, but the elevated plateaus are cool and healthful. There are 26,500 square miles of territory, having an elevation of 4,000 feet or over, and 72.500 more over 3,000 feet above the sea. Companies have been formed to farm on a large scale. Cecil Rhodes, who has brought millions of capital into the country, and has large investments into railroads and other property, has given much attention to the development of agriculture and stock breeding. The rinderpest has almost exterminated the cattle.

After the suppression of the rebellion of the Matabele and Mashonas that began when Jameson's raid into the Transvaal left the country without military protection, Lord Grey, the Administrator who succeeded Dr. Jameson, and his new staff of officials decided on the policy of native administration for the future. The Matabele chiefs, 85 in number, were summoned to Buluwayo in the beginning of January, 1897, to hear how the country should henceforward be ruled. Instead of five dis