It is almost past belief, however, that so small a matter as the closing of a ford, or “drift,” across the Vaal River could be made the subject of international dispute, and become the cause of ill-will between two nations on terms of perfect amity and good will; but so it was. In a rate war between the Cape Government Railway system and the Transvaal Railway Company, in order to force the hand of the Transvaal Company, the Cape authorities adopted the practice of unloading freight on the south side of the Vaal, on Free State soil, and sending it on by ox-wagons across the “drift” and so transporting it over the more than fifty miles to Johannesburg—this to deprive the Transvaal section of the through railway of the carrying trade from the border to Johannesburg until it submitted to a certain prescribed rate. In order to protect a railway enterprise in which it was a partner, the Transvaal government promptly proclaimed the “drift” closed to traffic. The Cape government then complained to the imperial authorities, and obtained from the Colonial Office a decision that the closing of the “drift” was a breach of the London Convention, of 1884, and must be reversed. To avoid trouble over so paltry a matter the Transvaal government withdrew the proclamation, but there was bitter feeling occasioned by this interference, naturally in inverse ratio to the petty cause of it. The resentment was as widespread as the two Africander Republics. It was this incident, together with the Jameson raid of a few months later, that decided the Free State to dissolve all partnership with Cape Colony as to railway interests, and to use its option of buying the Free State section of this trunk line at cost price. As this was the most profitable part of the whole system, the Cape government was a heavy loser—to the extent of 7 per cent out of 11 per cent profits previously derived from the road;—but if the ultimate object sought by those who directed the movement was to create a strong prejudice in England against the Transvaal government, it was gained. As time went on preparations for the contemplated uprising were matured. Ostensibly to participate in the taking over of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Doctor Jameson and his police were brought down to the vicinity of the Transvaal frontier. Simultaneously, mutterings of the coming earthquake—as it was intended to be—began to be heard. At the meeting of the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, held on the 20th of November, 1895, Mr. Lionel Phillips, in an incendiary speech, declared that “capital was always on the side of order, but there was a limit to endurance, though there was nothing further from their desires than an upheaval which would end in bloodshed.” How this was understood, even in Europe, may be seen from the following reference to it in a letter from a gentleman in Hamburg, written on the 6th of December, and quoted by Mr. Statham in his “South Africa as It Is”: