In the years immediately following 1872 the disorganization and public weakness of the Transvaal Boers became dangerous to themselves and inimical to the peace of all South Africa. The emigrant farmers had for two decades been living in a chronic state of war with the ever-increasing number of natives around them and, while successful in their raids upon individual Bantu kraals, were entirely unsuccessful in the subjection of the tribes as a whole. They would not submit to taxation, what little paper money they possessed had in 1870 depreciated to a quarter of its face value, and the few business transactions indulged in were carried out on lines of barter not dissimilar to the aboriginal customs around them. No public improvements were made and no administrative system existed further than a nominal Presidency which was helpless in the face of the surrounding disorganization. The accession of Mr. Burghers to the position, in 1872, did not remedy matters and the repulse of the Boers from the stronghold of Sekukuni on their north-eastern border, in 1876, precipitated a situation which resulted in the British annexation of the Republic. [Sidenote: Authoritative Questions] So much of the subsequent discussion regarding this policy turns upon the then existing internal situation of the Transvaal that a couple of authoritative quotations may be given here. Mr. James Bryce, who has since made himself unpopular in England by his opposition to the War of 1899, states in his _Impressions of South Africa_ that: "The weakness and disorders of the Republic had become a danger not only to the British subjects who had begun to settle in it but also to the neighbouring British territories and especially Natal." Dr. George M. Theal, a recognized authority upon South African affairs, despite a pronounced tendency to sympathize with the Dutch, refers in the _Story of the Nations_ Series, to the troubles with Sekukuni and then proceeds; "But the country was quite unable to bear the strain. The ordinary charges of government and the interest on the public debt could not be met, much less an additional burden. And so the whole administrative machinery broke down. The Republic was really in a pitiable state, without money or an army, with rebellion triumphant and a general election approaching that was feared might be attended with civil war." [Sidenote: A Great Peril]