“The idea of the persecuted and oppressed Uitlanders has become so fixed in the minds of English people—thanks to the efforts of those who were occupied in preparing and justifying a revolt—that even the plainest statement of facts seems powerless to dispossess it. No one will claim, no one ever has claimed, that the government of the South African Republic is perfect. Having regard to the extraordinary changes that have come over the country during the last ten years, it is really a marvel that the government is not much more imperfect than it is. The present position of the Transvaal executive has been not inaptly compared to the position of the crew of a collier brig who might suddenly find themselves in control of a first-class mail steamer. However desirous they might be of doing their best, they could hardly avoid making some mistakes. If the foreign population had much more to complain of than they have, it ought not to cause either surprise or indignation. “And what have they to complain of? Really, the life of the average foreigner in Johannesburg is the freest imaginable. He can follow his trade, he can follow his profession, no matter what it is, without any question or hindrance from the government. His position as an Uitlander in no way hinders him from investing in property, from practicing as a lawyer in the courts, from undertaking, in fact, as freely as he could undertake in his own country, any lawful kind of business or occupation. If he pays a high rent for his house, that is not the fault of the government, but of the land speculators who have bought up building stands. If his water supply is somewhat defective, it is the fault of the big foreign capitalists, who think more of the dividends they put in their own pockets than of the water they put into the people’s mouths. “A government which depends on the goodwill of a strictly Sabbatarian population allows the Uitlander to spend his Sunday exactly as he pleases. He may play lawn tennis if he likes—and, indeed, he generally does so; he may engage in cricket matches, he can attend so-called sacred concerts, the programmes of which are drawn from the music hall or the comic opera. If he is in a gayer mood he may witness on a Sunday evening displays of “living pictures” which certainly would not be tolerated at the Royal Aquarium. To put it shortly, allowing for little drawbacks of climate and the expense of living, the Uitlander can live more at his ease in Johannesburg or Pretoria than in almost any other city under the sun. “But he is taxed.