Undeterred, however, by this failure, the National Reform Union, an association which organised the agitation, came back to the attack in 1894.

They drew up a petition which was signed by 35,000 adult male Uitlanders, a greater number than the total Boer male population of the country.

A small liberal body in the Raad supported this memorial and endeavoured in vain to obtain some justice for the newcomers.

Mr.Jeppe was the mouthpiece of this select band.

'They own half the soil, they pay at least three quarters of the taxes,' said he.
'They are men who in capital, energy, and education are at least our equals.
What will become of us or our children on that day when we may find ourselves in a minority of one in twenty without a single friend among the other nineteen, among those who will then tell us that they wished to be brothers, but that we by our own act have made them strangers to the republic ?' Such reasonable and liberal sentiments were combated by members who asserted that the signatures could not belong to law-abiding citizens, since they were actually agitating against the law of the franchise, and others whose intolerance was expressed by the defiance of the member already quoted, who challenged the Uitlanders to come out and fight.