NEWS OF THE WEEK.
,EVENTS in Pretoria have advanced rapidly. On the assembling of the High Court in Pretoria on Monday a statement was read on behalf of the Reform leaders, Colonel Rhodes, Mr. L. Phillips, Mr. Farrar, and Mr. Hammond, which virtually amounted to a plea of guilty. The writers admitted that they had invited Dr. Jameson, though they had endeavoured to prevent his crossing the frontier at the time he did, and that they had assumed authoyity in Johannesburg ; but pleaded that they had not attacked the independence of the Republic, and that their action within the town was necessary to prevent anarchy. The cause of their revolt, they say, was the conviction that the vote would not otherwise be conceded to the Out- landers. There is evidence throughout their defence of a desire to throw the greater portion of the blame upon a " mistake " of Dr. Jameson's—not a very generous attempt, as they pledged themselves that if admitted into Johannes- burg he should leave peacefully, clearly an assumption on their part of complete authority over his movements Their advocate, Mr. Weasels, then made an eloquent speech on their behalf ; but the Court held that they were amenable not to any statute, but to the ground-law of the Republic, which is Roman-Dutch, and which pre- scribes only death for treason. They were accordingly condemned to death, while fifty-nine of their leading followers were sentenced to two years' imprisonment, a fine of £2,000 each, and banishment, at the expiration of the sentence, for three years. The smaller men sentenced include the heads and managers of some of the largest businesses in the Transvaal, many of them, it is stated, entirely guiltless of active com- plicity in the insurrection. Tne capital sentences appear to have excited horror even among the Boers. The jury at once petitioned the Executive Council to commute them, and prayers to the same end flowed in from all South Africa. Mr. Chamberlain, upon receipt of the news, at once telegraphed to the High Commissioner to inform President Kruger that " her Majesty's Government could feel no doubt that his Honour would remit the sentence, and had assured Parlia- ment of their conviction that this was his Honour's inten- tion." Whether in consequence of these representations or of their own view of what justice and expediency required, the Executive Council on Tnesday remitted the capital penalties.
