In the Orange Free State the Volksraad or Parliament is plenipotentiary,--more so if it be possible than our Parliament is with us because there is but one Chamber and because the President has no veto upon any decision to which that Chamber may come. The Volksraad is elected almost exclusively by the rural interest. There are 54 members, who are returned, one for each chief town in a district, and one for each Field-Cornetcy,--the Field-Cornetcies being the divisions into which the rural districts are divided for police and military purposes. Of these towns, such as they are, there are 13, and from them, if from any part of the State, would come a desire for English rule. But they, with the exception of the capital, can hardly be said to be more than rural villages. It is in the towns that the English language is taught and spoken,--that English tradesmen live, and that English modes of life prevail. The visitor to Bloemfontein, the capital, will no doubt feel that Bloemfontein is more English than Dutch. But Bloemfontein returns but one member to the Yolksraad. From the rural districts there are 41 members, all of whom are either Boers or have been returned by Boers. Were the question extended to the division even of the 13 town members I do not doubt but that the present state of things would be maintained,--so general is the feeling in favour of the independence of the Republic. But seeing that the question rests in truth with the country members, that the country is essentially a farmer’s country, a country which for all purposes is in the hands of the Dutch Boers, it seems to me to be quite out of the question that the change should be voted by the legislature of the country. An Englishman, or an Africander with an English name and an English tongue, is under the constitution as capable of being elected as a Dutchman. A very large proportion of the wealth of the country is in English hands. The large shopkeepers are generally English; and I think that I am right in saying that the Banks are supported by English, or at any rate, by Colonial capital. And yet, looking through the names of the present Volksraad, I find but two that are English,--and the owner of one of them I believe to be a Dutchman. How can it be possible that such a House should vote away its own independence? It is so impossible that there can be no other way of even bringing the question before the House than that of calling upon it for a unanimous assertion of its will in answer to the demand, or request, or suggestion now made by Great Britain.