Transvaal Sentence Examples

But the Transvaal War of 1899-1902, to which Australia sent 6310 volunteers (principally mounted rifles), and the gradual increase of military sentiment, brought the question more to the front, and more and more attention was given to making Australian defence a matter of local concern.

Mafeking is thus an important trading and distributing centre for Bechuanaland and the western Transvaal.

The appointment was avowedly made in order that an acceptable British statesman, in whom public confidence was reposed, might go to South Africa to consider all the circumstances, and to formulate a policy which should combine the upholding of British interests with the attempt to deal justly with the Transvaal and Orange Free State governments.

The better to understand the point of view of the Cape Dutch and the burghers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State, Milner also during this period learned both Dutch and the South African "Taal."

P. Schreiner to form a ministry, though aware that such a ministry would be opposed to any direct intervention of Great Britain in the Transvaal.

On the 4th of May Milner penned a memorable despatch to the Colonial Office, in which he insisted that the remedy for the unrest in the Transvaal was to strike at the root of the evil - the political impotence of the injured.

Milner felt that only the enfranchisement of the Uitlanders in the Transvaal would give stability to the South African situation.

He had not based his case against the Transvaal on the letter of the Conventions, and regarded the employment of the word "suzerainty" merely as an "etymological question," but he realized keenly that the spectacle of thousands of British subjects in the Transvaal in the condition of "helots" (as he expressed it) was undermining the prestige of Great Britain throughout South Africa, and he called for "some striking proof" of the intention of the British government not to be ousted from its predominant position.

Hofmeyr a conference was held (May 31 - June 5) at Bloemfontein between the high commissioner and the president of the Transvaal.

Milner then made the enactment by the Transvaal of a franchise law which would at once give the Johannesburgers a share in the government of the country his main, and practically his only, demand.

The work of reconstructing the civil administration in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony could only be carried on to a limited extent while operations continued in the field.

Immediately following the conclusion of peace Milner published (June 21) the Letters Patent establishing the system of crown colony government in the Transvaal and Orange River colonies, and exchanging his title of administrator to that of governor.

In the latter part of 1904 and the early months of 1905 Lord Milner was engaged on the elaboration of a scheme to provide the Transvaal with a system of "representative" government, a half-way house between crown colony administration and that of self-government.

It is joined to the trunk railway from Port Elizabeth to the Transvaal by a branch line from Smaldeel, 28 m.

Here in December 1880 a great meeting of Boers resolved again to proclaim the independence of the Transvaal.

Here the land loses its semi-tropical character and resembles more the plains of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.

Northwest, towards the Transvaal, the mountains are of lower elevation and more rounded contours.

Laing's Nek is a pass into the Transvaal.

The Pongola rises in the Transvaal in high ground N.E.

The white and Asiatic population nearly doubled in the thirteen years since the previous census, allowance being made for the Utrecht and Vryheid districts, which in 1891 formed part of the Transvaal.

Utrecht (860) lies between Newcastle and Vryheid, and was one of the first towns founded by the Transvaal Boers.

The chief exports, not all products of the province, are coal, wool, mohair, hides and skins, wattle bark, tea, sugar, fruits and jams. The import trade is of a most varied character, and a large proportion of the goods brought into the country are in transit to the Transvaal and Orange Free State, Natal affording, next to Delagoa Bay, the shortest route to the Rand.

The bulk of these exports are to the Transvaal and neighbouring countries, and previously figure as imports, other exports, largely wool and hides, are first imported from the Transvaal.

Smellekamp (a man who subsequently played a part in the early history of the Transvaal and Orange Free State), concluded a treaty with the volksraad assuring them of the protection of Holland.

Many of the Boers who would not acknowledge British rule trekked once more over the mountains into what are now the Orange Free State and Transvaal provinces.

In a dispute between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State he decided (February 1870) that the Klip river and not the upper Vaal was the frontier stream.

They showed indeed in their dealings both with the natives within their borders and with the Zulus beyond the Tugela a disposition to favour the natives at the expense of their white neighbours in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, and their action against Langalibalele was fully justified and the danger of a widespread native revolt real.

For some years Natal, in common with the other countries of South Africa, had suffered from the absence of anything resembling a strong government among the Boers of the Transvaal, neighbours of Natal on the north.

The annexation of the Transvaal to Great Britain, effected by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in April 1877, would, it was hoped, put a period to the disorders in that country.

These promises were not kept for long, and by 1878 his attitude had become so hostile towards both the Natal and Transvaal governments that Sir Bartle Frere, then High Commissioner for South Africa, determined on his reduction.

The Transvaal Republic was established, but the prediction of the colonists, ignored at the time, was afterwards fulfilled to the letter.

In justice, however, to the colonists of Natal it must be recorded that, finding their protest with regard to the Transvaal settlement useless, they made up their minds to shape their policy in conformity with that settlement.

In 1884 the discovery of gold in De Kaap Valley, and on Mr Moodie's farm in the Transvaal, caused a considerable rush of colonists from Natal to that country.

Railways were still far from the Transvaal border, and Natal not only sent her own colonists to the new fields, but also offered the nearest route for prospectors from Cape Colony or from Europe.

Two years later, in 1886, the Rand goldfields were proclaimed, and the tide of trade which had already set in with the Transvaal steadily increased.

In this year (1886) the railway reached Ladysmith, and in 18 9 1 it was completed to the Transvaal frontier at Charlestown, the section from Ladysmith northward opening up the Dundee and Newcastle coalfields.

As the nearest colony to the Transvaal, Natal was resorted to by a large number of men, women and children, who were compelled to leave the Transvaal on the outbreak of the war.

As one result of the war, an addition was made to the territory comprised in Natal, consisting of a portion of what had previously been included in the Transvaal.

In consideration of the advantage to Natal from this addition of territory, Natal should take over £70o,000 of the Transvaal debt.

It was proposed to include in Natal such portions of the Harrismith and Vrede districts as were comprised by a line following the Elands river north from its source on the Basutoland border to its junction with the Wilge river, and thence drawn straight to the point where the boundaries of Natal, the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony meet on the Drakensberg.

For this course there were many reasons, the Transvaal territory annexed, or the greater part of it (the Vryheid district), having been only separated from the rest of Zululand in 1883 by a raid of armed Boers.

In these circumstances, His Majesty's government have decided to confine the territory to be transferred to the districts in the Transvaal."

It was suppressed by the colonial forces under Colonel (afterwards Sir) Duncan McKenzie, aided by a detachment of Transvaal volunteers.

Not long after the conclusion of the war of1899-1902the close commercial relations between the Transvaal and Natal led to suggestions for a union of the two colonies, but these suggestions were not seriously entertained.

Meantime it was agreed by the Cape, Transvaal and Natai governments that, subject to Natal entering the Union, its share of the Rand import trade should be 25% before and 30% after the establishment of the Union.

The boundaries of the Transvaal have varied from time to time.

This eastern edge forms the frontier between Transvaal and Portuguese territory.

There are four separate river basins in the Transvaal.

The absence of alluvial deposits of any size is another characteristic of the Transvaal rivers.

A broad ring of crystalline rocks (Swaziland schists) encircles the Transvaal except on the south, where the Karroo formation extends over the Vaal River.

The following subdivisions have been recognized by Molengraaff Karroo System, Transvaal System, Vaal River System, South African Primary System.

The chief outcrops are in the south-western Transvaal, around Zoutpansberg and in Swaziland.

The richest in gold are to be found among the Main Reef series, which yields by far the greater part of the total output of gold from the Transvaal.

This system rests unconformably on the Witwatersrand series and is unconformably overlain by the Transvaal system.

A complex of igneous rocks of different ages covers immense areas in the central Transvaal.

The Karroo System attains its chief development in the southeastern Transvaal in the districts of Ermelo, Standerton and Wakkerstroom.

The diamond pipes probably represent some of the most recent rocks of the Transvaal.

The recent deposits of the Transvaal may be considered to be insignificant.

A large yellow tulip (Homerica pallida) is one of the most abundant flowers on moist vlei lands on the high veld and is occasionally met with in the low veld; slangkop (Urginea Burkei) with red bulbs like a beetroot is a low bush plant apparently restricted to the Transvaal and adjacent Portuguese territory.

When first entered by white men the Transvaal abounded in big game, the lion, leopard, elephant, giraffe, zebra and rhinoceros being very numerous, while the hippopotamus and crocodile were found in all the rivers.

It is not found in a wild state and the auffalo (bos caffer) is almost if not quite extinct in the Transvaal.

The population of the Transvaal, on the 17th of April 1904, when the first complete census of the country was taken, was 1,269,951 (including 8215 British soldiers in garrison),1 or 11.342 persons per sq.

The total white population in the Witwatersrand and in Pretoria in 1904 was 135,135, and the strength of the British in these districts is shown by the fact that only 20% was Transvaal born.

Of those born outside the Transvaal 2 4.6% came from other British possessions in Africa and 24.92% from Great Britain or British colonies other than African.

Next, numerically, to the Basuto and Bechuana peoples are the tribes known collectively as Transvaal Kaffirs, of whom there were 159,860 enumerated at the 1904 census.

Altogether the Transvaal Kaffirs form 50% of the inhabitants of Waterberg district, 30% of Zoutpansberg district and 18% of Middelburg district.

In Barberton, Lydenburg and Zoutpansberg districts Shangaan and other east coast tribes are settled, 80,834 being returned as born in the Transvaal.

The Shangaan are members of a Bantu tribe from the Delagoa Bay region who took refuge in the Transvaal between 1860 and 1862 to escape Zulu raids.

Besides the tribes whose home is in the Transvaal considerable numbers of natives, chiefly members of east coast tribes, Cape Kaffirs and Zulus, go to the Witwatersrand to work in the gold and other mines.

Many east coast natives after working in the mines settle in the northern Transvaal.

Of the aboriginal South Africans in the Transvaal, at the 1904 census, 77.69% were born in the Transvaal.

The number of Asiatics in the Transvaal in April 1904 was 12,320, including 904 Malays, natives of South Africa, and 9986 British Indians.

Potchefstroom, in the south near the Vaal (pop. 9348), is the oldest town in the Transvaal.

In 1890 the construction of the Transvaal section of the railway to connect Pretoria with Delagoa Bay was begun, the line from Lourenco Marques having been completed to Komati Poort in December 1887.

The telegraph lines within the Transvaal have a length of about 3000 m.

The Transvaal, the principal gold producing country in the world, is noted for the abundance and variety of its mineral resources.

The total value of the gold extracted from mines in the Transvaal up to the end of 1909 was about £246,000,000.

Near Pietersburg in the Zoutpansberg is the Eersteling, the first mine worked in the Transvaal.

In 1898 the output for the whole of the Transvaal was valued at £44,000.

Like that of Natal the Transvaal coal burns with a clear flame and leaves little ash.

Half the imports reach the Transvaal through the Portuguese port of Lourengo Marques, Durban taking 25% and the Cape ports the remainder.

In May 1903 an inter-colonial council was established to deal with the administration of the railways in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony (known as the Central South African railways), the South African constabulary and other matters common to the Orange River and Transvaal colonies.

This council was presided over by the governor of the Transvaal and formed an important part of the administrative machinery.

The inter-colonial council received and spent in the four years1903-1907over £21,500,000, including some £3,500,000 paid in from revenue by the Transvaal and Orange River colonies to make good deficits.

The Transvaal revenue (apart from railway receipts) in 1908-1909 was £5,735,000, the corresponding expenditure £4,524,000.

In accordance with the terms of the Education Act of 1907 of the Transvaal colony, state schools are provided for the free instruction of all white children in elementary subjects.

Nearly half of the white community, 142,540 persons, belong to one or other of the Dutch Churches in the Transvaal, but they have only 4305 native members.

The others are the Nederduitsch Gereformeerde Kerk, an offshoot of the Church of the same name at the Cape, and the Gereformeerde Kerk (the " Dopper " Church) with some 15,000 members and adherents in the Transvaal.

The Transvaal forms a distinct district command under a major-general.

A volunteer force was established in 1904, for service within the Transvaal, or wherever the interests of the country might require.

The inhabitants were unable to withstand the attacks of the disciplined Zulu warriors - or Matabele, as they were henceforth called - by whom large areas of central and western Transvaal were swept bare.

When the British government decided to recognize the independence of the Transvaal Boers it was with Pretorius that negotiations were conducted.

Pretorius alleged that by this means the natives were obtaining firearms. At the same time the Transvaal Boers claimed that all the Bechuana country belonged to them, a claim which the British government of that day did not think it worth while to contest.

In 1856 a series of public meetings, summoned by Pretorius, was held at different districts in the Transvaal for the purpose of discussing and deciding whether the time had not arrived for substituting a strong central government in place of the petty district governments which had hitherto existed.

In reviewing an incident so important in the history of the Transvaal as the appointment of the Potchefstroom assembly it is of interest to note the gist of the complaint among the Boers which led to this revolution in the government of the country as it had previously existed.

Within the Transvaal the forces making for union gained strength notwithstanding these events, and by the year i 860 Zoutpansberg and Lydenburg had become incorporated with the republic. Pretoria, newly founded, and named in honour of the elder Pretorius, was made the seat of government and capital of the country.

Pretorius, while still president of the Transvaal, had been elected, through the efforts of his partisans, president of the Orange Free State.

He had no sooner left the Transvaal than the -old Lydenburg party, headed by Cornelis Potgieter, landdrost of Lydenburg, protested that the union would be much more beneficial to the Free State than to the people of Lydenburg, and followed this up with the contention lions' that it was illegal for any one to be president of the South African Republic and the Free State at the same time.

At the end of the six months Pretorius, after a stormy meeting of the volksraad, apparently in disgust at the whole situation, resigned the presidency of the Transvaal.

If at this stage of their existence the real ambition of the Transvaal Boers was to found a strong and compact republican state, their conduct in opposing a scheme of union with the Orange Free State was foolish to a degree.

Some of the new party were arraigned for treason and fined; and for several months there were two acting presidents and two rival governments within the Transvaal.

The prestige of the country was practically gone, not only with the world outside, but, what was of still more moment, with her neighbour the Free State, which felt that a federation with the Transvaal, which the Free State once had sought but which it now forswore, was an evil avoided and not an advantage lost.

When called upon to go to the aid of this settlement, which in1865-1866was sore pressed by one of the mountain Bantu tribes known as the Baramapulana, the burghers of the southern Transvaal objected that the white inhabitants of that region were too lawless and reckless a body to merit their assistance.

The same proclamation extended Transvaal territory on the east so as to include part of Delagoa Bay.

It was also in accord with the desire of the Transvaal Boers to obtain a seaport, a desire which had led them as early as 1860 to treat with the Zulus for the possession of St Lucia Bay.

To this district Sir Henry Barkly asserted the British rights, but no steps were taken to enforce them and as a matter of fact the Bloemhof district continued to be part of the Transvaal.

He recognized that, even at this early stage of their history, the Transvaal Boers were filled with the wildest ideas as to what steps they would take in the future to counteract the influence of Great Britain.

Brand intimated to many of the leading Transvaal Boers that in his opinion they were embarking on a rash and mistaken policy.

About this time gold reefs were discovered in the Zoutpansberg district near Marabastad, and a few gold seekers from Europe and Cape Colony began to prospect the northern portions of the Transvaal.

On his return to the Transvaal in 1876 Burgers found that the conditions of affairs in the state was worse than ever.

In 1877 the Transvaal one-pound notes were valued at one shilling cash.

Add to this condition of things the fact that the Zulus were threatening the Transvaal on its southern border, and the picture of utter collapse which existed in the state is complete.

As to the Transvaal in particular, it was felt by Lord Carnarvon " that the safety and prosperity of the republic would be best assured by its union with the British colonies."

Sir Theophilus Shepstone was given a commission, dated the 5th of October, 1876, instructing him to visit the Transvaal and empowering him, if it was desired by the inhabitants and in his judgment necessary, to annex the country to the British crown.

He had gone to Pretoria hoping that the Transvaal volksraad would accept Carnarvon's federation scheme; but the federation proposals were rejected by the raad.

The history of the Transvaal is more complete and better understood to-day than it was in 1877, and no one who acquaints himself with the facts will deny that Shepstone acted with care and moderation.

Even before annexation had occurred, Shepstone felt the danger so acutely that he sent a message to Cetywayo, the Zulu chief, warning him that British annexation was about to be proclaimed and that invasion of the Transvaal would not be tolerated.

Burgers himself left the Transvaal a disappointed, heart-broken man, and a deathbed statement published some time after his decease throws a lurid light on the intrigues which arose before and after annexation.

However this may be, Burgers was crushed; but as a consequence the British government and not Paul Kruger was, for a time at least, master of the Transvaal.

In the beginning of 1879 Shepstone was recalled and Colonel Owen Lanyon, who had served in Bechuanaland and was then administrator of Griqualand West, was appointed administrator in the Transvaal.

In the meantime, the Zulu forces which threatened the Transvaal had been turned against the British, and the disaster of Isandhlwana occurred.

Rumours of British defeat soon reached the Transvaal, and Agitation encouraged the disaffected party to become bolder in their agitation against British rule.

In June Sir Garnet Wolseley went to South Africa as commander of the forces against the Zulus, and as high commissioner " for a time," in the place of Sir Bartle Frere, of the Transvaal and Natal.

In May 1880 he returned to England, having established in the Transvaal a legislative council with powers so limited as to convince many of the Boers that there was no intention of fulfilling Shepstone's promises.

So keenly were the Midlothian speeches appreciated by the Boers that the Boer committee wrote a letter of thanks to Gladstone, and expressed the hope that should a change in the government of Great Britain occur, " the injustice done to the Transvaal might find redress."

On being directly appealed to by Kruger and Joubert, Gladstone however replied that the liberty which they sought might be " most easily and promptly conceded to the Transvaal as a member of a South African Confederation."

Meanwhile in the Transvaal, concurrently with the change of prime minister and high commissioner, the administrator, Colonel Lanyon, began vigorously to enforce taxation among the Boers.

Sir George Colley, with about 1400 men, marched towards the Transvaal frontier, but before reaching it he found, on the 24th of January 1881, that the Boers had already invaded Natal and occupied Laing's Nek.

The most important of these terms were that the Transvaal should have complete internal self-government under British suzerainty and that a British resident should be stationed at Pretoria.

Another article reserved to her majesty " the control of the external relations of the said state, including the conclusion of treaties and the conduct of diplomatic intercourse with foreign powers," and the right to march troops through the Transvaal.

The boundaries of the state were defined, and to them the Transvaal was strictly to adhere.

If ever a small state was well treated by a large one, the Transvaal was so in the retrocession of 1881.

This act called forth a protest from the 15th Lord Derby (now secretary of state for the colonies), stating that he could not recognize the right of Boer freebooters to set up governments of their own on the Transvaal borders.

Moreover, Kruger requested that the term " South African Republic " should be substituted for Transvaal State.

In the articles of the new convention the boundaries were once more defined, concessions being made to the Transvaal on the Bechuanaland frontier, and to them the republic was bound to " strictly adhere."

He declared that he had preserved the thing in its substance, if he had not actually used the word; and this view of the matter was always officially maintained in the colonial office (which, significantly enough, dealt with Transvaal affairs) whatever the political party in power.

In 1886 the " New Republic " with limits considerably narrowed, was recognised by Great Britain, and the territory became incorporated with the Transvaal in 1888.

Gold digging had hitherto enjoyed in the Transvaal but a precarious existence.

An attempt was made in 1888, after the conference held between Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and Natal, to induce the Transvaal to enter a customs union.

The Transvaal National Union was formed.

A number of British subjects resident in Comman- the Transvaal, in spite of their having no political status, were commandeered to suppress a native r i s i ng.

This result was not, however, achieved before President Kruger had done his utmost to induce Sir Henry Loch to promise some revision in favour of the Transvaal of the London Convention.

Whether he deceived himself or not, he led President Kruger and the Boers to believe that Germany was prepared to go to almost any length in support of the Transvaal if any opportunity occurred.

The protest was unheeded, the British government having realized the international complications that might ensue had the Transvaal a port of its own.

Between them it was arranged that Jameson should gather a force of Boo men on the Transvaal border; that the Uitlanders should continue their agitation; and that, should no satisfactory concession be obtained from Kruger, a combined movement of armed forces should be made against the government.

Finally, to make confusion worse confounded, Jameson, becoming impatient of delay, in spite of receiving direct messages from the leaders at Johannesburg telling him on no account to move, marched into the Transvaal.

The reform leaders in the Transvaal, down to and including the Johannesburg rising, had always recognized as a cardinal principle the maintenance of the independence of the state.

Significant of the attitude of Germany - whose " flirtation " with the Transvaal has been noted - was an open telegram sent by the emperor William II.

The British government rejoined by commissioning a flying squadron and by calling attention to the London Convention, reserving the supervision of the foreign relations of the Transvaal to Great Britain.

Its constitution for this purpose was anomalous, as it consisted almost entirely of Transvaal officials whose knowledge of the requirements of the industry was scanty.

In 1898, to strengthen his relations with foreign powers, Kruger sent the state secretary, Dr Leyds," to Europe as minister plenipotentiary, his place on the Transvaal executive being taken by Mr Reitz, the ex-president of the Free State.

To help the Transvaal government out of its difficulty, and.

Alfred Milner to meet President Kruger at Bloemfontein, hoping to be able to exert pressure on both parties and to arrange a settlement as favourable as possible to Bioem- the Transvaal.

But apart from the relief suggested being entirely inadequate, it was only to be given on certain conditions, one of which was that all future disputes which might arise between the Transvaal and the Imperial government should be referred to a court of arbitration, of which the president should be a foreigner.

Meetings were held in all the large towns, at which resolutions were passed declaring that no solution of the Transvaal question would be acceptable which did not provide for equal political rights for all white men.

It was certain that, since the troublous times of 1896, the Transvaal had greatly increased its armaments; but at their best, except by a very few,' the Boers were looked upon by British military experts as a disorganized rabble, which, while containing many individual first-class marksmen, would be incapable of maintaining a prolonged resistance against a disciplined army.

But the fact that it was to a large extent a struggle with a nation in arms doubled the numbers of the force that the Transvaal executive was able to draw upon.

To these demands the Transvaal government required an answer within 48 hours.

On the following day the Boer attack on an armoured train at Kraaipan, a railway station in Cape Colony south of Mafeking and close to the western frontier of the Transvaal, witnessed the first hostile shot of a bloody war, destined to plunge South Africa into strife for two years and a half.

The second, the period of Boer organized resistance, may be said to have finished with the occupation of Komati Poort in October 1900 (a month after Lord Roberts's formal annexation of the Transvaal) and the flight of President Kruger.

These successes, if they retarded Roberts's progress, at least enabled him to rearrange his forces in accordance with the new situation at leisure, and to re-establish his transport, rail and wheeled, and on the 1st of May the main army moved northwards upon the Transvaal capital.

The gold mines were now securely in the possession of the British, and on the 5th of June Lord Roberts's army occupied the capital of the Transvaal practically without resistance, setting free about 3000 British prisoners of war detained there.

On the 8th of June Sir Redvers Buller, who had made a long halt after the relief of Ladysmith and reorganized his army and its line of communication, forced his way over Alleman's Nek, and on the following day occupied Laing's Nek, the Natal gate to the Transvaal, while the field marshal fought a widespread battle against Botha, De la Rey and Kemp at Diamond Hill, 20 m.

The object of this action was to push back the Boers from the neighbourhood of Pretoria, but no sooner was this done than the ncrth-western Transvaal became active, in spite of Hunter's and Baden-Powell's advance from Mafeking through this district.

These, under Sir Archibald Hunter and Sir Leslie Rundle, successfully herded Prinsloo with 4000 Free Staters into the Brandwater Basin (July 29) - a very satisfactory result, but one seriously marred by the escape of De Wet, who soon afterwards raided the Western Transvaal and again escaped between converging pursuers under Kitchener, Methuen, SmithDorrien, Ian Hamilton and Baden-Powell.

On the 25th of the month the ceremony of annexing the Transvaal was performed at Pretoria.

De Wet, after escaping from Brandwater Basin, was hunted north-westward, and crossed into the Transvaal, where, joining the local guerrilla bands, he surrounded an infantry brigade at Fredrikstad.

He despatched French with a large force to clear the south-eastern districts of the Transvaal and for the rest maintained a force to watch De Wet, and organized a defence force in Cape Colony, while using the residue of his mounted men to sweep the country of stock, forage and inhabitants.

In the northern Transvaal a force under Sir Bindon Blood cleared the country, but could not prevent Viljoen from escaping eastward to join Botha.

On the 3rd of March, after various raids and adventures in company with Smuts and Kemp, De la Rey, the lion of the western Transvaal, essayed an attack upon Lichtenburg, in which he was heavily repulsed.

A meeting took place at Middelburg, Transvaal, on the 28th of February.

In the south-eastern Transvaal Botha made a new effort to invade Natal, but, although he captured 300 men and three guns in an action on the 17th of September at Blood River Poort near Vryheid, his plans were rendered abortive by his failure to reduce the posts of Mount Prospect and Fort Itala in Zululand, which he attacked on the 26th, and he only escaped with difficulty from the converging columns sent against him.

This swept the south-eastern Transvaal as French had done, and with no better effect, for Botha escaped.

But the British commander thereupon began a constant succession of night marches and raids which practically blotted out the resistance in the eastern Transvaal.

First the country east of the line Bloemfontein-Vereeniging was swept four times over, then the method was employed in the Transvaal, east and west, and finally against the Cape rebels.

Several of the reforms adopted for the Transvaal applied to or affected the sister colony.

The end of the military government was signalled by the assumption (on the 21st of June) by Lord Milner of the title of governor of the Transvaal and by the creation of an executive council.

By the introduction of the Chinese the gold output from the mines was greatly increased, with the result that the Transvaal suffered less than any other part of South Africa from the restriction of commerce, which lasted for several years.

The British government was also of opinion that the time was near for the setting up of such institutions, and the pending grant of a constitution to the Transvaal was announced in parliament in July 1904.

There were in the Transvaal some ro,000 British Indians, whose right to " enter, travel or reside " in the country was secured by the London convention of 1884.

In this matter the Boer and British sections of the community were in agreement, and they had the support of the Transvaal government and of the other South African colonies.

In accordance with the promise made in 1904 a constitution for the Transvaal on representative lines was promulgated by letters patent on the 31st of March 1905; but there self-G,„„ was already an agitation for the immediate grant ment - the of full self-government, and on the accession to Botha office of the Campbell-Bannerman administration Ministry.

Lord Selborne, who had during 1905 succeeded Lord Milner as high commissioner and governor of the Transvaal, entrusted General Botha with the formation of a ministry.

The existence of the inter-colonial council hampered, however, the freedom of the Transvaal government, and steps were taken to determine it.

He resigned office to contest a seat for the Transvaal parliament.

Subsequently he was agent-general for the Transvaal in London, and (1910) agentgeneral for the Union of South Africa.

He went to the Transvaal in 1884 and became honorary secretary to the Johannesburg Reform committee.

He was the author of The Transvaal from Within; Jock of the Bushveld, &c.

Nevertheless, on economic as well as political grounds, the leaders of both parties in the Transvaal were prepared to consider favourably the proposals put forward by Dr Jameson at the close of 1906 for a closer union of all the self-governing colonies, and the first direct step to that end was taken at an inter-colonial conference held in May 1908.

Apart from this movement the most notable events in the Transvaal at this period were the development of agriculture,' the gradual revival of trade (the output of the gold mines in 1909 totalled f 30,925,000, and at the end of the year 156,000 native labourers were employed), and the continued difficulty with regard to British Indians.

Ministers declared their determination to keep the Transvaal a white man's country.

The establishment of the Union of South Africa removed from the competence of the Transvaal provincial council all legislation specially or differentially affecting Asiatics.

Until 1864, however, when the civil war in the Transvaal ended, Potchefstroom remained the virtual capital of the country.

There in 1877 Sir Theophilus Shepstone proclaimed the annexation of the Transvaal to Great Britain.

In 1881 the convention restoring self-government to the Transvaal was signed at Pretoria.

On the 31st of May 1902 the articles of peace whereby the Boer leaders recognized British sovereignty were signed at Pretoria, and five years later there assembled in the capital the first parliament of the Transvaal as a self-governing state of the British Empire.

Meanwhile, though the Colonial Conference (re-named Imperial) of 1907 showed that there was a wide difference of opinion on the tariff question between the free-trade government and the colonial premiers, in one part of the empire the ministry took a decided step - in the establishment of a self-governing constitution for the Transvaal and Orange River colonies - which, for good or ill, would make the period memorable.

The failure of the government in Ireland (where the only success was Mr Birrell's introduction of the Universities Bill in April 1908), their internal divisions as regards socialistic legislation, their variance from the views of the selfgoverning colonies on Imperial administration, the admission after the general election that the alleged "slavery" of the Chinese in the Transvaal was, in Mr Winston Churchill's phrase, a "terminological inexactitude," and the introduction of extreme measures such as the Licensing Bill of 1908, offered excellent opportunities of electioneering attack.

With the Boers who had settled in the Transvaal, however, he was involved in various frontier disputes.

The frontier disputes between the Zulu and the Transvaal Boers ultimately involved the British government and were one of the causes of the war which broke out in 1879.

As far as possible Cetywayo he revived the military methods of his uncle Chaka, king, and even succeeded in equipping his regiments with firearms. It is believed that he instigated the Kaffirs in the Transkei to revolt, and he aided Sikukuni in his struggle with the Transvaal.

The tension between Cetywayo and the Transvaal over border disputes continued, and when in 1877 Britain annexed the Transvaal the dispute was transferred to the new owners of the country.

Cetywayo (who now found no defender in Natal save Bishop Colenso) was in a defiant humour, and permitted outrages by Zulu both on the Transvaal and Natal borders.

Cetywayo left a son, Dinizulu, who sought the assistance of some of the Transvaal Boers against Usibepu, whom he defeated and drove into the Reserve.

The British government intervened, took formal possession of St Lucia Bay (to which Germany as well as the Transvaal advanced claims), caused the Boers to reduce their demands, and within boundaries agreed to recognize the New Republic - whose territory was in 1888 incorporated in the Transvaal and has since 1903 formed the Vryheid division of Natal.

At that time the Transvaal government - which had been the first to reap the benefit of Great Britain's defeat of the Zulu by acquiring the " New Republic " - was endeavouring to obtain the territories of Zambaan and Umtegiza, hoping also to secure a route through Tongaland to Kosi Bay.

He was subsequently settled on a farm in the Transvaal and given a pension of £500 a year.

Rhodesian-grown Turkish tobacco is already on the English market, as also various brands of tobacco from the Transvaal.

The Transvaal university college is in Plein Square, a little south of Park station.

The mines within the municipal area produce nearly half the total gold output of the Transvaal.

The Transvaal university college, founded in 1904 as the technical institute (the change of title being made in 1906), provides full courses in science, mining, engineering and law.

The town, named after Johannes Rissik, then surveyor-general of the Transvaal, was founded in September 1886, the first buildings being erected on the part of the reef where are now the Ferreira and Wemmer mines.

There was a great development in the mining industry during 18 971898 and 1899, thei value of the gold extracted in 1898 exceeding £15,000,000, but the political situation grew worse, and in September 1899, owing to the imminence of war between the Transvaal and Great Britain, the majority of the Uitlanders fled from the city.

See also the Post Office Directory, Transvaal (Johannesburg, annually), which contains specially prepared maps, and the annual reports of the Johannesburg chamber of commerce.

For the political history of Johannesburg, see the bibliography under Transvaal.

Among the regions not previously important as gold-producers which now contribute to the annual output, the most remarkable are the goldfields of South Africa (Transvaal and Rhodesia, the former of which were discovered in 1885).

Undoubtedly the greatest of the gold discoveries made in the latter half of the 19th century was that of the Witwatersrand district in the Transvaal.

In Rhodesia, the country lying north of the Transvaal, where gold occurs in well-defined quartzveins, there is unquestionable evidence of extensive ancient workings.

In the mills of the Californian type the stamp is a cylindrical iron pestle faced with a chilled cast iron shoe, removable so that it can be renewed when necessary, attached to a round iron rod or lifter, the whole weighing from 600 to 900 lb; stamps weighing 1320 lb are in use in the Transvaal.

It has been especially successful in the Transvaal.

In the Transvaal the operation occupies 32 to 4 days for fine sands, and up to 14 days for coarse sands; the quantity of cyanide per ton of tailings varies from 0.26 to 0.28 lb, for electrolytic precipitation, and o 5 lb for zinc precipitation.

In the process employed at the Worcester Works in the Transvaal, the liquors, containing about 150 grains of gold per ton and from 0.08 to o 01% of cyanide, are treated in rectangular vats in which is placed a series of iron and leaden plates at intervals of 1 in.

In Ankole and Koki rocks consisting of granular quartzite, schistose sandstone, red and brown sandstone, and shales with cleaved killas rest on the Archean platform and possibly represent the Lower Witwatersrand beds of the Transvaal.

This diamond was in 1907 presented by the Transvaal government to Edward VII.

The Transvaal and the Orange River colonies were enumerated in 1904.

In the latter, a census had been taken in 1890, in considerable detail, but that of the Transvaal, in 1896, seems to have been far from complete or accurate even in regard to the white population.

The chief tributaries of the Vaal (q.v.) wholly or partly within the province are, going from east to west, the Klip (this stream from near its source to its confluence with the Vaal divides the Free State from the Transvaal), the Wilge, Rhenoster, Vet, Modder and Reit.

The Sand river, on whose banks the convention recognizing the independence of the Transvaal Boers was signed in 1852, is a tributary of the Vet and passes through the centre of the country.

The Vaal itself for the greater part of its course forms the boundary between the province and the Transvaal.

Of the 142,679 white inhabitants in 1904, 85,036 were born in the province; 29,727 in the Cape; 3116 in the Transvaal; 1835 in Natal; and 18,487 in the _United Kingdom.

Largely owing to its situation - being on the direct route between the Cape ports and the Transvaal, and between Durban and Kimberley - the province possesses an extensive network of railways.

They may be divided into two systems, (I) those connecting the province with the Cape and the Transvaal, and (2) those linking it with Natal.

Many of the farmers deserted Winburg for the Transvaal.

The intervention of Pretorius resulted in the Sand River Convention of 1852, which acknowledged the independence of the Transvaal but left the status of the Sovereignty untouched.

Distracted among themselves, with the formidable Basuto power on their southern and eastern flank, the troubles of the infant state were speedily added to by the action of the Transvaal Boers.

President Boshof not only got together some eight hundred men within the Free State, but he received offers of support from Commandant Schoeman, the Transvaal leader in the Zoutpansberg district and from Commandant Joubert of Lydenburg.

Many of the burghers would have at this time welcomed union with the Transvaal, but learning from Sir George Grey that such a union would nullify the conventions of 1852 and 1854 and necessitate the reconsideration of Great Britain's policy towards the native tribes north of the Orange and Vaal rivers, the project dropped.

The offer was accepted, and on the 27th of October 1871 the district, together with some adjacent territory to which the Transvaal had laid claim, was proclaimed, under the name of Griqualand West, British territory.

At this time, largely owing to the exhausting struggle with the Basutos, the Free State Boers, like their Transvaal neighbours, had drifted into financial straits.

At the time of the first annexation of the Transvaal the Free State declined Lord Carnarvon's invitation to federate with the other South African communities.

In 1880, when a rising of the Boers in the Transvaal was threatening, President Brand showed every desire to avert the conflict.

He suggested that Sir Henry de Villiers, Chief Justice of Cape Colony, should be sent into the Transvaal to endeavour to gauge the true state of affairs in that country.

This suggestion was not acted upon, but when war broke out in the Transvaal Brand declined to take any part in the struggle.

In spite of the neutral attitude taken by their government a number of the Free State Boers, living in the northern part of the country, went to the Transvaal and joined their brethren then in arms against the British.

Mr Reitz had no sooner got into office than a meeting was arranged with Mr Kruger, president of the Transvaal, at which various terms of an agreement dealing with the railways, terms of a treaty of amity and commerce and what was called a political treaty, were discussed and decided upon.

The political treaty referred in general terms to a federal union between the Transvaal and the Free State, and bound each of them to help the other, whenever the independence of either should be assailed or threatened from without, unless the state so called upon for assistance should be able to show the injustice of the cause of quarrel in which the other state had engaged.

The state, however, became increasingly identified with the reactionary party in the Transvaal.

A further offensive and defensive alliance between the two Republics was then entered into, under which the Free State took up arms on the outbreak of hostilities with the Transvaal 1899.

In order to understand the attitude which the Free State took at this time in relation to the Transvaal, it is necessary to review the history of Mr Reitz from an earlier date.

On entering Bloemfontein in 1900 the British obtained possession of certain state papers which contained records of negotiations between the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

At the first of these conferences, held in Pretoria, the object of the Free State deputies were to arrange a general treaty of amity and commerce which would knit the states more closely together, and to come to some agreement with reference to the scheme for building a railway across the Free State from the Cape, to connect with a farther extension in the Transvaal to Pretoria.

The deputation also urged the Transvaal to join the South African Customs Union.

Both of these suggestions were strongly disapproved by Mr Kruger, inasmuch as they meant knitting together the Boer republics and the British possessions, instead of merely bringing the Free State into completer dependence on the Transvaal.

The English will only use their position to swindle the Transvaal of its proper receipts."

President Kruger replied that once the Transvaal had a harbour foreign powers would intervene.

The Transvaal was to pay £ 20,000 annually to the Free State for loss incurred for not having the railway to Cape Colony.

Such a treaty as the one proposed would simply have enslaved the Free State to the Transvaal, and it was rejected by the Free State volksraad.

The Free State was on terms of friendship with its neighbours, nor (added Brand) would the Transvaal have need for such an alliance as the one proposed if its policy would only remain peaceful and conciliatory.

Brand refused to allow the Free State to be committed to a suicidal treaty, or dragged into any wild policy which the Transvaal might deem it expedient to adopt.

After Sir John Brand's death, as already stated, a series of agreements and measures gradually subordinated Free State interests to the mistaken ambition and narrow views of the Transvaal.

But events were moving rapidly in the Transvaal, and matters had proceeded too far for the Free State to turn back.

The Free Staters were practically bound, under the offensive and defensive alliance, in case hostilities arose with Great Britain, either to denounce the policy to which they had so unwisely been secretly party, or to throw in their lot with the Transvaal.

A resolution was passed by the volksraad on the 27th of September" declaring that the state would observe its obligations to the Transvaal whatever might happen.

Having recovered from the worst effects of the war the Boers, both in the Transvaal and Orange Colony, began in 1904 to make organized efforts to regain their political ascendancy, and to bring pressure on the government in respect to compensation, repatriation, the position of the Dutch language, education and other subjects on which they alleged unfair treatment.

A similar organization, called Het Volk, had been formed by the Transvaal Boers in January 1905.

The previous (Conservative) government had in March 1905 made public a form of representative govern- government, intended to lead up to self-government meat* for the Transvaal, and had intimated that a similar constitution would be subsequently conferred on the Orange Colony.

Goold-Adams was appointed lieutenant-governor, Milner being governor also of the Transvaal, which country claimed most of his attention.

After the surrender of Cronje at Paardeberg on the 27th of February 1900 Bloemfontein was occupied by the British troops under Lord Roberts (March 13,) and on the constitution met on the 18th of December 1907, when it was announced that the Transvaal and Orange Colony had each given notice of the termination of the intercolonial council with the intention of each colony to gain individual control of its railways and constabulary.

In view of the dissolution of the intercolonial council a convention was signed at Pretoria on the 29th of May which made provision for the division of the common property, rights and liabilities of the Orange Colony and the Transvaal in respect to the railways and constabulary, and established for four years a joint board to continue the administration of the railway systems of the two colonies.

The Transvaal Zoological Gardens at Pretoria are a government institution, and are associated with the Museum.

Other streams are tributaries of the Limpopo, which for some distance is the frontier between Bechuanaland and the Transvaal.

A sandstone found in the neighbourhood of Palapye is considered to be the equivalent of the Waterberg formation of the Transvaal.

At this period the Transvaal Boers were in a very unsettled state, and those living in the western districts showed a marked inclination to encroach upon the lands of the Bechuana.

Moffat complained to Sir George Grey, the governor of Cape Colony, through whose intervention the molestation by Transvaal Boers of British subjects in their passage through Bechuanaland was stopped.

This led to a protest (in 1870) from Montsioa, which he lodged with a landdrost at Potchefstroom in the Transvaal, threatening to submit the matter to the British high commissioner if any further attempt at taxation were made on the part of the Boers.

The Boers then resorted to cajolery, and at a meeting held in August 1870, at which President Pretorius and Paul Kruger represented the Transvaal, invited the Barolong to join their territories with that of the republic, in order to save them from becoming British.

Keate, lieutenant-governor of Natal, and his award placed Montsioa's territory outside the limits of the Transvaal.

On the withdrawal of the police, southern Bechuanaland fell into a state of anarchy, nor did the fixing (on paper) of the frontier between it and the Transvaal by the Pretoria convention of August 1881 have any beneficial effect.

The Transvaal War of that date offered opportunities to the freebooting Boers of the west which were not to be lost.

The Transvaal government was to have supreme power, and to be the final arbiter in case of future quarrels arising among the native chiefs.

In the London convention of February 1884, conceded by Lord Derby in response to the overtures of Boer delegates, the Transvaal boundaries were again defined, part of eastern Bechuanaland being included in Boer territory.

In spite of the convention the Boers remained in Stellaland and Goshen - which were west of the new Transvaal frontier, and in April 1884 the Rev. John Mackenzie, who had succeeded Livingstone, was sent to the country to arrange matters.

The Boers now (loth of September) proclaimed the country under Transvaal protection.

In the more settled parts of Cape Colony, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State it now only exists within the enclosures of the large farms, and can hardly be said to be any longer truly wild.

Joubert, Botha was made commander-in-chief of the Transvaal Boers.

In the period of reconstruction under British rule, General Botha, who was still looked upon as the leader of the Boer people, took a prominent part in politics, advocating always measures which he considered as tending to the maintenance of peace and good order and the re-establishment of prosperity in the Transvaal.

After the grant of self-government to the Transvaal in 1907, General Botha was called upon by Lord Selborne to form a government, and in the spring of the same year he took part in the conference of colonial premiers held in London.

As a member of the cabinet responsible for the Transvaal negotiations in 1899 he bore his full share of controversy, and when the war opened so disastrously he was the first to realize the necessity for putting the full military strength of the country into the field.

The new prime minister came into power practically at the same moment as the king's coronation (see Edward Vii.) and the end of the South African War '(see' Transvaal).

The rapid progress of the Transvaal and Swaziland missions has been almost embarrassing.

One Dutch society gives its attention to the northern part of the Transvaal.

The outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 led to a strong outburst of sympathy among the Dutch on behalf of their kinsmen in South Africa, and there were times during the war, especially after President Kruger had fled from the Transvaal in a Dutch war vessel and had settled in Holland, when it was a task of some difficulty for the Dutch government to prevent the relations between Great Britain and the Netherlands from becoming strained.

At the large and important Premier mine in the Transvaal the Elmore process, used in British Columbia and in Wales for the separation of metallic ores, has been also introduced.

But by far the largest of all the pipes hitherto discovered is the Premier Section Or Kimberley Mine mine in the Transvaal, about 300 m.

The Kimberley shales, which are penetrated by the De Beers group of pipes, were, however, certainly not the source of the carbon at the Premier (Transvaal) mine, for at this locality the shales do not exist.

But all previous records were surpassed in 1905 by a magnificent stone more than three times the size of any known diamond, which was found in the yellow ground at the newly discovered Premier mine in the Transvaal.

This stone was purchased by the Transvaal government in 1907 and presented to King Edward VII.

He became known in the House of Commons principally for his candid criticism of the measures introduced by his nominal leaders, and he was rather to be ranked among the Opposition than as a Ministerialist; and when the crisis with the Transvaal came in 1899, Mr Courtney's views, which remained substantially what they were when he supported the settlement after Majuba in 1881, had plainly become incompatible with his position even as a nominal follower of Lord Salisbury and Mr Chamberlain.

After the occupation of Pretoria in June 1900 by Lord Roberts the Boer forces had been reduced to guerilla warfare, and Lord Kitchener, learning that the Transvaal commandants were despondent, invited General Botha to enter into negotiations, on the basis of the recognition of British sovereignty.

Provincial spirit remained keen, but the white inhabitants of the eastern district, who are largely (if not mainly) of British descent, look to the Transvaal and Free State for trade, while with the people of the western part of the province (who, Cape Town apart, are predominantly of Dutch origin) they have practically no commercial intercourse.

There was no introduction of party politics in the provincial council (as happened in the Transvaal province).

The Dutch Reformed Church in the Transvaal, pervaded by a spirit and faith not unlike those which distinguished the Covenanters, was divided in the early days into three sects.

When the lad, who had already taken part in fights with the Matabele and the Zulus, was fourteen his family settled north of the Vaal and were among the founders of the Transvaal state.

In 1852 the Transvaal secured the recognition of its independence from Great Britain in the Sand River convention.

Pretorius in his attempt to abolish the district governments in the Transvaal and to overthrow the Orange Free State government and compel a federation between the two countries.

From this time forward Kruger's life is so intimately bound up with the history of his country, and even in later years of South Africa, that a study of that history is essential to an understanding of it (see Transvaal and South Africa).

In 1864, when the faction fighting ended and Pretorius was president, Kruger was elected commandant-general of the forces of the Transvaal.

The decision caused so much discontent in the Transvaal that it brought about the downfall of President Pretorius and his party; and Thomas Francois Burgers, an educated Dutch minister, resident in Cape Colony, was elected to succeed him.

At this period of Transvaal history it is impossible to trace any true patriotism in the action of the majority of the inhabitants.

In 1883 he was elected president of the Transvaal, receiving 3431 votes as against 1171 recorded for Joubert.

From 1877 onward Kruger's external policy was consistently anti-British, and on every side - in Bechuanaland, in Rhodesia, in Zululand - he attempted to enlarge the frontiers of the Transvaal at the expense of Great Britain.

It may be summed up in his own words when replying to a deputation of Uitlanders, who desired to obtain the legalization of the use of the English language in the Transvaal.

In 1898 Kruger was elected president of the Transvaal for the fourth and last time.

In 1899 relations between the Transvaal and Great Britain had become so strained, by reason of the oppression of the foreign population, that a conference was arranged at Bloemfontein between Sir Alfred (afterwards Lord) Milner, the high commissioner, and President Kruger.

With such a history of apparent success, it is not to be wondered at that the Transvaal president came to Bloemfontein to meet Sir Alfred Milner in no mood for concession.

Every proposition which Sir Alfred Milner made was met by the objection that it threatened the independence of the Transvaal.

In October 1899, after a long and fruitless correspondence with the British government, war with Great Britain was ushered in by an ultimatum from the Transvaal.

Immediately after the ultimatum Natal and the Cape Colony were invaded by the Boers both of the Transvaal and the Free State.

The course of the war that followed is described under Transvaal.