One other action of this Tory Government betrayed the same {274} desire to acquire territory and to extend responsibilities as their enterprise in Central Asia. In 1877 they annexed the Transvaal Republic. This step was prompted partly by military motives, as giving additional security against the Zulus, whose quarrels with the scattered Dutch farmers caused perpetual unrest. It was also part of a scheme for South African federation, which was the offspring of the growing spirit of Imperialism. Nor did it seem at first that annexation was contrary to Boer sentiment. The Republic was loosely organized, its finances were in a bad state, its great mineral wealth was unknown, and some of the inhabitants were anxious to obtain the stability which the British connection would afford. If the promise of representative institutions, which was made at the time, had been fulfilled with reasonable speed, the hostile section might have been reduced to insignificance. But the British Government seemed to forget that it was dealing with a race whose dislike of foreign domination was as stubborn as that of their own people. It is unquestionable that the bulk of the Boer population resented the annexation, and used every peaceful means of expressing its real wishes. But in spite of deputations, public meetings, and petitions signed by practically every elector of the old Republic, the Disraeli Ministry continued to govern by the arbitrary methods of Crown Colony Government. When the Liberals came into power, in 1880, three years after the annexation, the Boers were still without the promised institutions, and the opponents of England were no longer a faction, but the whole people. Want of imagination never stumbled into a worse folly.