at once and so remove the objection, the Government having power in special cases to dispense with the conditions of the Naturalization Law--a power frequently exercised in the case of their Hollander friends. The President, in reply, stated that it could not be done, and he appealed to Mr. Esselen to select a man of another nationality--'a Frenchman, German, or even an American'--this last being a concession wrung from him by Mr. Esselen's soothing suggestion that the Chief of Police should be familiar with the language of the criminal classes. The hitch was maintained for some months, but finally the influences on the side of the President became too strong, and when it became clear that the many months of laborious work and self-sacrifice which had been given in the interests of reform were to be nullified by the appointment of a creature who would connive at every breach of the law, Mr. Esselen decided to stand or fall by his subordinate, the result being a triumph for the President. In Mr. Esselen's place there was appointed as State Attorney Dr. Coster, a Hollander, who however declined to have anything to do with the organization of the police; and in Mr. Trimble's stead reappeared the individual whom he had superseded and whose services had been dispensed with.{15} The triumph of the back-door influences was again complete and the blow was a very nasty one to the mining industry. Small wonder that at about this time the Uitlander community stopped all agitation, and that a mood of sullen opposition and discontent took its place. Hope was absolutely dead as abuse after abuse and scandal after scandal were showered upon them during the Session of 1895. Some of the acts of the Volksraad cut at the foundation of all security. In the early days of the Republic the Volksraad members had taken it upon themselves to reverse several of the decisions of the High Court, and in one case where the Government was being sued for the fulfilment of a contract the Volksraad had passed a resolution absolving the Government from certain terms of the contract. The decision of the Court, delivered by Chief Justice Kotze, was to the effect that if the Volksraad should take a decision in conflict with an existing law, that law became _ipso facto_ so far modified. In another case (the Dom's case) a resolution was passed disabling the aggrieved individual from taking action against the Government; in another, where the responsibility of the Government for the maintenance of roads had been indicated by a judgment for L1,000 damages, a law was passed in defiance of the conditions of the Grondwet, which stipulates for a period of notice and publication for proposed enactments, absolving the Government from all damages of this nature.