The other reason put forward for withholding the amount strikes me as being--almost mean. I have heard it put forward only in conversation, and I am bringing no charge against any Statesman in the Cape Colony by saying this. I trust that the argument has had no weight with any Statesman at the Cape. The Cape Colony makes the roads over which the goods are carried up to the Free State. She does do so,--and the railroads. But she collects toll on the former, and charges for carriage on the latter. And she enjoys all the money made by the continued traffic through her territory. And she levies the port duties, which no one begrudges her. I felt it to be a new thing to be informed that a country was so impoverished by being made the vehicle for traffic from the sea to the interior that it found itself compelled to reimburse itself by filching Custom Duties.[14] England might just as well claim the customs of the Cape Colony because she protects the seas over which the goods are carried. But the Orange Free State can carry on her little business even without the aid of Custom Duties, and will certainly not be driven back into the arms of the mother who once repudiated her by the want of them. She can pay her modest way; and while she can do so the Boer of the Volksraad will certainly not be induced to give up the natural delight which he takes in ruling his own country. The Free State might send perhaps six members to the central Congress of a South African Federation, where they would be called upon to hear debates, which they would be unable to share or even to understand because spoken in a foreign language. They would be far from their farms and compelled to live in a manner altogether uncomfortable to them. Is it probable that for this privilege they will rob themselves of the honour and joy they now have in their own Parliament? In his own Parliament the Boer is close, phlegmatic, by no means eloquent, but very firm. The two parliamentary ideas most prominent in his mind are that he will vote away neither his independence nor his money. It is very hard to get from him a sanction for any increased expenditure. It would I think be impossible to get from him sanction for a measure which would put all control over expenditure out of his own hands. “We will guard as our choicest privilege that independence which Her Majesty some years since was pleased to bestow upon us.” It is thus that the Boer declares himself,--somewhat sarcastically,--when he is asked whether he does not wish to avail himself of the benefit of British citizenship.