This Government only wishes to point out that the fact that the Edgar case is the strongest which Her Majesty's Government has been able to quote against the administration of justice in this Republic affords the strongest and most eloquent proof possible that, taking it in general, the administration of justice on the gold fields of this Republic not only compares favourably with that on other and similar gold fields, but even with that of old and settled countries. The untrue representations of this occurrence in the Press prove conclusively that the newspapers of the Witwatersrand, the atrocity-mongering tactics of which constitute a share of the organised campaign against the Republic and its Government, have been compelled to resort to mendacious criticisms on imaginary instances of maladministration which were often simply invented. Where the Press is forced to adopt such methods, the true grievances must of necessity be unreal. Her Majesty's Government now proceeds to discuss certain laws of this Republic, with the object of showing that the Uitlander population is also oppressed by the legislature of this country, the Press Law, the Aliens Expulsion Law, and Law No. 1 of 1897 being especially instanced. But it can also be proved that the population of the gold fields have no solid grounds of complaint in regard to the laws in question. Respecting the existing Press Laws, No. 26 of 1896, and No. 14 of 1898, it is necessary to remark that no printer, issuer, or editor of a newspaper can be prosecuted unless he has made himself guilty of criminal libel, so that the principle of the Grondwet of 1858 has in this respect been rigidly adhered to. Her Majesty's Government will at once see that these laws cannot in any way bear harshly upon the writing public, a fact which is clearly borne out by the way in which the newspapers of this country are edited. Nowhere else in the world has the liberty of the Press so degenerated into license. No newspaper in any country in the world would for one moment dare to speak of the Government, the Legislature, and authorities of the country as the _Star_, the _Transvaal Leader_, and similar newspapers do every day in this Republic. The imaginary nature of these grievances is not dispelled by the fact that the power is vested in the State President of prohibiting either entirely or provisionally the circulation of any printed matter which is contrary to good morals or public order, because the very same Supreme Court, which in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government only exists at the mercy of this Government, has pronounced that it has no power to prohibit the circulation of any newspaper; the freedom of the regular Press thus remains as unrestricted as under the old Grondwet.