On Saturday last Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman delivered an address on
the Transvaal crisis at a garden party given by the Liberal and Radical Council at Ilford. There was nothing, he declared, which had occurred to justify either warlike action or military preparation. It could not be ques- tioned, however, that many of the complaints of the Out- landers were well founded. "They have not the municipal government, the police protection. the organised 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." Yet not the redress of these grievances, but merely the grant of the franchise was what was demanded at the Conference. Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman went on to use language which seems to show that he thinks it was ill-advised of the Government to insist on the franchise as the essential point. We cannot agree with him. The grant of the franchise is the one thing which can obtain fair treatment for the Outlanders. In a rough frontier country, filled with a black population, if a man is not allowed to carry arms or to share in the govern- ment he is certain, whatever the nominal law, to be treated as the Outlanders are treated by the Boers. Give the bowl- fide resident Outlanders the vote and all the rest of the needed reforms will come in due time.
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