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THE TRANSVAAL.
Further, in the proceedings before the Royal Commission of 1881, which sat in South Africa, President Kruger said that British subjects were on the same footing as burghers as regarded trade—equal protection for every one; and in answer to Sir Evelyn Wood, 'equal privileges as far as burghers' rights were concerned—except as regarded new arrivals, who were required to remain one year in the country before becoming burghers.'
British prestige demanded a remedy for Uitlanders' grievances.How far Mr. Gladstone's intention and Mr. Kruger's pledges had been carried out, might be gathered from Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman's words the other day:—'The Uitlanders have not the municipal government, the police protection, the organized maintenance of order, the even-handed administration of justice, which in all civilised communities are regarded as the very elements of civil right and civil freedom.' The Liberal Party under their great leader was the enemy of injustice and oppression all over the world; on behalf of Irishmen, on behalf of Bulgarians, and in still later days on behalf of the Armenians his voice was always uplifted on the side of liberty and the rights of citizenship. If he had been alive to-day would not his voice have been uplifted on behalf of our fellow-countrymen in the South African Republic, though the very fact that they were our fellow-countrymen seemed to be with some people a reason why no action should be taken on their behalf. At a meeting which he addressed in July last, just before he went abroad, he pointed out that the solution of the Uitlanders' grievances in the Transvaal was bound up, as far as he was able to judge, with the future supremacy of this country in South Africa, and he expressed his confidence in the245
