‘My dear fellow, no one wants you to submit to it. I don’t believe you got an invitation from the Boer Government to come here and live under their laws. All you have to do is to submit to it or leave. No one will prevent you or ask you to come back. I do not say this because I wish to make myself nasty, but, in common fairness, you must consider what is right. Here you come into a free Republic, inhabited by a quiet, peace-loving, God-fearing people. They have obtained their country after herculean struggles against enemies from within and without. Again and again they had to fight for country and liberty, and at last they seem to be safe, and wealth comes to them. Strangers from afar come unto them. (Strangers, besides, who are of the people who have persecuted and chased them from their old home, “into a new country, and out again”; and still are they threatened by the Government of these self-same strangers.) They share their wealth with these strangers, they give these strangers the protection of their laws, on an equal footing with themselves. But these gold-hunting strangers are not satisfied with this. It is not enough for them to share with the original owners of the soil--no, they want to be _masters_! And because the owners of the soil will not walk quietly out of their country and give everything up to the would-be usurpers, they are reviled, libelled and abused. You are an Englishman, an Englishman’s boast is supposed to be _love of “fair play,”_ where does your love of fair play come in here?’ ‘But if they wish to share with us, why do they not share the franchise with us?’ ‘That is it--you are asking for the handle of the knife. You know very well that if the franchise is given to every Tom, Dick and Harry, the Uitlanders will get hold of the handle, and if the Boers should try to pull it out of their hands, they will cut their fingers. You are asking them to simply commit political suicide. No, old man, a thing obtained, as their liberty was obtained, will be more cherished than to be thus lightly given up. Now, if your intentions were honest and fair to the Boers, you would quietly wait your hour until the stipulated time expires, when you may legally become a Burgher; and if the time appears rather long, I have perfect confidence that, if the Uitlanders will only show the Government that they wish to become peaceful, law-abiding citizens of the Republic, anxious to advance the honour and prosperity of the country of their adoption, which they can only do by working with the Government, and ceasing to show their prejudice to everything that is _Boer_, then I am sure the Government will soon shorten the time of probation, and take them into the fold of full burghership.’