For years it had been the hope of
the Uitlanders that this would come, and that there would be an end to a
position that was well-nigh intolerable. Never before had a large body
of intelligent men been kept in a state of abject subjection by an
inferior race, a race almost without even the elements of civilization,
ignorant and brutal beyond any existing white community, and superior
only in the fact that they were organized and armed, whereas those they
trampled upon were deficient in both these respects. Having no votes,
these were powerless to better their condition by the means common to
civilized communities throughout the world. They were ground down by an
enormous taxation, towards which the Boers themselves contributed
practically nothing, and the revenue drawn from them was spent in the
purchase of munitions of war, artillery, and fortifications, so
enormously beyond the needs of the country, that it was no secret that
they were intended not only for the defence of the republic against
invasion, but for a general rising of the Boer population and the
establishment of Dutch supremacy throughout the whole of South Africa.
The Boer government was corrupt from the highest to the lowest. The
president and the members of his family piled up wealth to an enormous
amount, and nothing could be done without wholesale bribery.
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