it was announced, after the usual morning sitting of the Executive, that forty-five out of the fifty-one prisoners still in gaol were to be released at once on certain conditions. Messrs. Davies and Sampson, not having signed the petition for release, were cxcluded from this act of clemency. The President was loudly cheered as he drove through the Square in his Presidential equipage after the announcement.

The fate of the four leaders was reserved for still further consideration. They were being invited to make a sufficient bid for their release. An intermediate sentence of fifteen years' imprisoment had been announced to them; but it was understood that, on suitable conditions, this also might be revised.. They had been informed, through the chief gaoler, that though the Government could not accept blood-money, or impose a fine in place of the commuted death penalty, yet if they themselves petitioned for a fine in lieu of imprisonment, it might be granted: if not, they might remain where they were, as their punishment had been commuted. At first they demurred. They refused to sign one form of petition which had been shown to the President, acknowledging his "magnanimity." Ultimately, on advice, they signed a simple statement to the effect that, “now that the death sentence had been commuted, they understood the alternative was imprisonment: in lieu of this, they asked for a monetary penalty, and were prepared to go back to their business in good faith." This document was sent in under a covering letter, in which Mr. Du Plessis, the Head Gaoler, and Mr. Van Niekirk, Chief of the 'Police, were named as their authorities for the understanding. No answer was returned. Soon a suggestion was conveyed through the UnderSecretary of State that a particular sum should be named by the prisoners. After some consideration, they agreed to offer ten thousand pounds a-piece: forty thousand pounds in all. The amount was found to be insufficient. The State Secretary took a Rule-of-Three view of the case: "If the prisoners already liberated had paid two thousand pounds in lieu of one year's imprisonment, would not thirty thousand pounds be the proper equivalent for fifteen years?" Unfortunately for the arithmetic of this argument, the other prisoners had been condemned to two years' imprisonment, not one only and in thei case the fine was part of the original punishment, not a substitution for imprisonment. The President, it was reported, had acknowledged in the Executive that the sum offered was too small: and had suggested that forty thousand pounds a-piece was what the petitioners really

intended. The matter was again put off, and referred to the judge for his opinion. It was now privately intimated to the prisoners that if they inserted the sum of forty thousand pounds a-piece into their petition, the Government would magnanimously decline to accept so large a sum, and would certainly be satisfied with the moderate fine of twenty-five thousand. This the prisoners flatly refused to do. Several further emissaries appeared on the scene; sundry letters were written. A monster deputation was organised to approach the President on 13th June; when at last, without further chaffering, on the 11th, the final decision was arrived at, and the four leaders were let out on the payment of twenty-five thousand pounds a-piece, coupled with stringent conditions as to taking no part in Transvaal politics, directly or indirectly, for the future. Thus the total authorised bill for the release of the prisoners amounted to some £212,000. How many more thousands had to be paid in connexion with the release, and to whom, in unauthorised but inevitable payments, by those who could afford to pay, it would not be edifying to tell.

The story of the Pretoria prisoners affords a fair example of Boer methods of justice, of government, and diplomacy: many more of a similar character may be extracted from the official papers. As far as diplomacy goes, these methods have been crowned with complete success. In his negotiations with Great Britain, President Krüger has scored every point in the game. He has removed no grievances: yet he has obtained the fulfilment of every condition which he demanded as antecedent to their removal. He promised to introduce reforms: he has redeemed that promise by passing an Education Law, which aims at first Dutchifying the schools, and ultimately, through them, the entire population; a severe Press Law; and now-latest of all—an Aliens Expulsion Law. He announced in December last that he was waiting "till the tortoise put its head out": he has now made the best men in Johannesburg feel the pressure of his heel. He repelled with rudeness every intercession made on behalf of the prisoners by the British Government: yet he has extracted from some of the prisoners, nay, from some of our own public men, a compliment on his "magnanimity." He has spoken with rough bluntness to Mr. Chamberlain but a button has been carefully placed on the foil of Mr. Chamberlain's replies. The lives of Jameson and his men were secured by the terms of their surrender: yet he has gained credit with the whole world for sparing them, and to the very last, while

compelled to admit the genuineness of Cronjé's offer to Sir John Willoughby, and Sir John's acceptance of it, has had the effrontery to persist that that letter could be set aside by a subsequent conference between the Boer commanders. He has been arming the Boers to the teeth; he has expended £943,510 (mainly raised from Uitlanders) on war items in the present year, as compared with £200,000 in the year previous: yet he has sharply interrogated our Government as to the movement of every British soldier in South Africa-nay, even of our ships-and received soothing, almost apologetic, explanations in reply. And, strangest success of all, a Government which is reactionary in all its policy-political, commercial, educational-a Government of pure force, which scouts every constitutional maxim; a Government to which the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity are so strange that it will not admit that native races can have any rights at all-that Government has found champions in this country who appeal in its behalf to the fair names of Liberty and Justice champions of the sort that believe that, under all circumstances, the best method of furthering those principles is to oppose the spread of British ideas, and the assertion of British interests, in every corner of the world.

G. G. RAMSAY.

PAGEANTRY AND POLITICS

HATEVER the effect upon history of the Czar's stately procession through France, it will leave an abiding memory

WHA

of splendour and magnificence. Not even Paris, which above all the cities of the world has the genius of pageantry, ever prepared so brilliant a spectacle. Three days of august processions, three nights of illuminated glory, were the outward expression of a national sentiment. Wherever you turned there was the same evidence of artistry, the same sense of decoration. No byway was too humble for self-adornment, and with so various an ingenuity were the simple elements combined, that at every turn in the road you encountered a new inspiration, you marvelled at an aspect unseen before.

The masterpiece, of course, was the Emperor's entrance into the city of his pacific conquest. With no experience to serve for a comparison, you remembered the glories of a Roman triumph, and wondered whether the modern display were not the more glorious. Here, also, was a monarch driven through the capital of a great Republic, not in chains, but with the supreme honour of a military escort. For his delight, the year turned back upon its course. The gauntness of late autumn was converted to the gaiety of spring, and the radiant Champs-Elysées were made yet more radiant by the cloud of blossoms which shimmered in the leafless branches of their trees. The unbroken line of soldiers imported an air of military occupation; throughout the route aides-de-camp carried breathless messages from one general to another; and so zealously were the troops inspected in the anxious pause, that you might have been awaiting a battle rather than a holiday spectacle. But when the Russian hymn sounded the approach, when Vive la Russie was shouted by thousands of French throats, the momentary impression of bloodshed was instantly effaced, and you knew that the army was marshalled only to do homage to an illustrious guest. Nor was there the smallest disappointment, even for those who knew France's amazing talent for display. The procession. Vol. XV-No. 90.

2 N

was unsurpassable even in its reticence. There was no crowding, no undue desire to pack the cortège in a narrow compass. The brain which had organised the progress, realised perfectly the value of space, and permitted the spectators to enjoy one masterpiece before it was dazzled by another. After the grave dignity of the Municipal Guard there swept a cloud of Chasseurs d'Afrique, and so cunningly were the colours arranged, that you lost the sensation of cavalry in an etherealised vision of blue and white. Then a pause. And then a band of Arab chieftains mounted upon the white horses of their country, richly caparisoned with gold-embroidered green and crimson. So you lived through a rapid page of the Thousand and One Nights, until after yet another pause came the carriage bearing Cæsar and his fortunes. The Empress, a vision in white, was, as it were, the highest point in a marvellous effect of red, white, and blue. The pale autumn sky, seen through the lucid air, was repeated in the uniforms of the Chasseurs, which, with the white horses of the Arabs and the red breeches of the Guard, echoed the prevailing tricolour of Russia and of France. The crowd shouted, not knowing why; the Empress bent with gracious affability; the Emperor saluted, as if half-awaked from a startled dream; the most callous spectator enjoyed such a shock of magnificence, as is never like to be repeated, and won a memory of stately warriors, gold-reined horses, jewelled scimitars, and all the splendid trappings of war.

And so the procession continued, now in the sunlight, now in the more brilliant glare of an innumerable illumination. The Czar visited the Elysée with the pomp and circumstance of a victorious Sovereign. The approach to the Opera House was made under a multi-coloured canopy of lamps; the return home, between avenues of soldiers, in a dazzling brightness that shamed the day, was a miracle of scenic unreality. The gold coach might have contained Cinderella and her Fairy Prince; the lackeys might have been changed from mice at the touch of a mystic wand; only the Prefect of Police, driven hastily hither and thither, brought the wondering world to a sense of the morrow. But no longer did the crowd shout with enthusiasm: it was amazed into silence, and the Imperial coach rattled over the Boulevards with a noise that was as oppressive as the surrounding quietude. Wherever they went, Emperor and Empress were saluted with the same marvelling curiosity, with an enthusiasm tempered to respect, as the coach grew more familiar to the popular view.