ish dominions all over the world, and thus added the somewhat weighty straw which broke the back of Boer endurance.

The compensation granted to the slaveholders under the flag was inadequate, and though as much was allowed to South Africa as fell to slaveholders in other colonies, this fact did not serve to mitigate the added grievance to the Boers. Many writers grant them a greater or less measure of sympathy, but in absolute candour it must be said that this is principally based upon the fact that the English methods of dealing with the black races differed from their own, and to sympathise with them must necessarily be to disparage nineteenth century principles of justice.

The Boers enslaved the native, and treated him harshly both in slavery, and in their relations with him in his wild state. Their cruelty was spied upon and reported by British missionaries, and punished by the Government; then Boer quarrels and conflicts with the natives gained for the blacks the protection of the English, and finally their slaves were set free, in common with all slaves held under the British flag.

Upon these statements both sides agree, and it seems that the only sympathy we can feel for the Boers is that which they continue to deserve-that which belongs to men of seventeenth-century ways, who find themselves three centuries behind the ideas and influences which hedge them round.

Had the Boers been people of noble nature, of fine instincts, kindly, and with high and broad aspirations, had they redeemed, or even made an effort to redeem, a great wilderness, and put it in the path along which the progressive nations of the globe were tending; had they shown due regard for education, religious liberty, and the dignity of white labour; had they sought to produce and to manufacture what even their simple needs demanded, and to render themselves self-supporting, very different would be the judgment of the world, nor would its verdict be the death-sentence which now seems most likely to be passed upon them.

Had they, with all their uncouthness, been men of high resolve and broad capacity, the feelings which some seek to rouse in us on their behalf would be stirred in every fair man's heart. But this is so far from the case that all the weight of their "secret fund" has not been able to create the belief that they are a virtuous handful, struggling to create a government based on lofty ideals; has not been able to raise a single nation to speak or move upon their behalf.

The effort to compare them with the Founders of the North American Republic is to belittle the intelligence of every American who has informed himself upon the Boers' history. The petty, squalid record of the Boer leaders no more matches the heroic course of the American patriots, than the life of Stephen John Paul Kruger parallels that of George Washington.

Indeed, whoever would spare himself all greater trouble, and still reach the same just result, can simply contrast the portraits of the two Fathers of their Countries, and feel secure in what conclusion he may draw from this comparison.

Disgusted by the freeing of their slaves, the Boers made what they call the "Great Trek" in 1836 into a new territory, which offered them an opportunity to lead the solitary, almost nomad lives which to-day they still relish as the very consummation of desire.

The imperial spirit in full measure was not then upon Great Britain, nor did her rulers show that pride and foresight which defeated secession in the American States twenty-nine years later. They allowed the Boers to go, and, like the constable of Shakespeare's creation, "thanked God they were rid of a vil

lain."

And so it came to pass that in the course of two years about ten thousand Boers made the journey northward and eastward in their waggons, each head of a family carrying his Bible and his gun, and—so short is this nation's history, and so quickly do events march-among them strode a lad who has come to be the President of this day, and who, on that long trek, may have had riveted upon his mind the extraordinary conviction, or hallucination, which, at the end of sixty years, was to lead him to defy progress, justice, and the principles of liberty, fraternity, and equality, while

boasting that he would "never give anything" to the majority of people under his rule.

In the belief that they had freed themselves from the domination of foreigners, they began to establish their present republics upon the elevated plateau of the interior. Hardship, tragedy, wars with the natives, and all the vicissitudes of life in an unbroken country inhabited by savages, attended them, but they clung sturdily to their purpose.

At nearly the same time a large and better organised band of Boers, led by Pieter Retief, marched into what is now Natal, and all that resulted there did not by any means serve to allay the hatred of the Boer for the Briton. Durban (then Port Natal) had already been formed by the English, but the Government refused to establish its rule over the new territory.

This proved to be one of many instances of unwise action on the part of the Colonial Office, at the time when Great Britain fancied that she needed no more colonies, and that those which she already possessed should be left to struggle for themselves.

When the Boers began to pour into Natal in 1838, a garrison was sent by the Cape Government to the little east coast port, but the Crown refused to annex the region, and the garrison was recalled.

Shortly after this they made war upon the Zulus in Natal, established their own city of Pietermaritzburg, and began to parcel out the land. At once, the British

sent troops there to assert English sovereignty, and the Boer forces dispersed. Only five hundred remained in the new Colony; the others crossed the mountains and joined their compatriots in the two republics.

Thus an end was put to a third Boer republic, which existed only six years.

The participants in the "Great Trek" were now about fifteen thousand strong, and were attempting to govern a territory seven hundred miles long and three hundred miles wide. Great Britain had never ceased to regard them as her subjects, and still declared them such, yet did nothing to interfere with their course, or with the governments they set up.

At first the Boers bound themselves by slender ties into many little republican communities, each of which had a volksraad or people's council. This was more especially the case in what is now the Transvaal. The Boers on the southern side of the Vaal River, where now is the Orange Free State, had no government, and did not recognise any of the little governments of the Transvaal.

They were at last roused into nationalisation by a sudden movement of Great Britain, which, in pursuance of a plan for ensuring peace near the borders of its colonies, annexed the land between the northern border of Cape Colony and the Vaal River, and called it the Orange River Sovereignty. The handful of unor ganized Boers rose in arms, and with the help of armed