The Government Of The Transvaal After The War Was Left In The Hands
Of A Triumvirate, But After One Year Kruger Became President, An
Office Which He Continued To Hold For Eighteen Years.
His career as
ruler vindicates the wisdom of that wise but unwritten provision of
the American Constitution by which there is a limit to the tenure
of this office.
Continued rule for half a generation must turn a
man into an autocrat. The old President has said himself, in his
homely but shrewd way, that when one gets a good ox to lead the
team it is a pity to change him. If a good ox, however, is left to
choose his own direction without guidance, he may draw his wagon
into trouble.
During three years the little State showed signs of a tumultuous
activity. Considering that it was as large as France and that the
population could not have been more than 50,000, one would have
thought that they might have found room without any inconvenient
crowding. But the burghers passed beyond their borders in every
direction. The President cried aloud that he had been shut up in a
kraal, and he proceeded to find ways out of it. A great trek was
projected for the north, but fortunately it miscarried. To the east
they raided Zululand, and succeeded, in defiance of the British
settlement of that country, in tearing away one third of it and
adding it to the Transvaal. To the west, with no regard to the
three-year-old treaty, they invaded Bechuanaland, and set up the
two new republics of Goshen and Stellaland.
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