The account of the present condition of the Transvaal given
in Thursday's Times, shows the complete change that has come over that country since the opening of the gold-mines. Ten years ago the Boer Republic was a community as primitive as that of the Grisona before the tourists invaded its solitudes. Now the State over which President Paul Kruger presides is far more like a territory out West that has just begun to boom. At present the Boers only number 50,000, while the popula- tion of those who are legally foreigners is 100,000, of whom two-thirds are Englishmen. These are, however, too busy mining to care about who " rims " the Government, and we hay*, therefore, the absolutely unique spectacle of an Anglo-
Saxon majority, which is not only not self-governing, but in law is the alien subject of a handful of Afrikanders. The men of Dutch descent monopolise the suffrage, and exclude all but themselves from office. Of course, this state of things cannot last. Either an attempt to interfere with railway enterprise, or a continued refusal of the vote, will bring about a catastrophe, and then we shall see the country quietly pass into the hands of the English. After all, our people generally win in the end. Where the soldier fails the emigrant succeeds.
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