And he asked that distinctly not as a claim of right; he put it as a friendly suggestion, which would cut the root of the grievances complained of by giving the Uitlanders the power of looking out for themselves in the volksraad. It was a short way out of a great difficulty, that of dealing with all the particular cases of grievance in detail. Sir Alfred Milner tried to induce President Kruger to agree to his demand by pointing out to him that it would secure the independence of his country, because any motives for attack upon that independence which might exist would cease. President Kruger was equally clear in the manner in which he met that suggestion. He said that the effect would be to swamp the Dutch population. I should have said that Sir Alfred Milner put forward his suggestion not as though the numerical majority, which at present is with the Uitlanders, should immediately have a corresponding majority in the volksraad, but that they should at once have a substantial representation, and then, being able to fight their own battles, the increase of their number in the volksraad would follow in the natural course of things, just as we find in our own country the increase of representation of any class in parliament grows with the growth of its numbers and importance in the country. President Kruger went at once to the ultimate result. It was indifferent to him that the change was to be introduced gradually: he fixed and clung to the fact that it would only end, and in fact was meant to end, in the swamping of the Dutch population by Uitlanders, He said "we might just as well throw up the republic," … it "would be worse than annexation." Independence preserved in that manner he regarded as "independence lost." He showed plainly that what he was contending for was not the mere independence of the South African Republic as a certain territory outlined by a coloured border on the map, within which no outside power was to interfere; what he valued under the name of its independence was the
