If they were left to themselves nothing would come of it except talk, for many of them are very glad that the land should be English.

But the men who pull the strings are down in the Cape.

They want to drive every Englishman out of South Africa.

When Shepstone annexed the Transvaal he turned the scale against the Dutch element and broke up the plans they have been laying for years to make a big anti-English republic of the whole country.

If the Transvaal remains British there is an end of their hopes, for only the Free State is left, and it is hemmed in.