But, in spite of the change of policy due to Mr. Hofmeyr, the old leaven of stalwart Bondsmen remained sufficiently in evidence to draw from Mr. J. X. Merriman--then a strong Imperialist in close association with Mr. J. W. Leonard--a striking rebuke. The speech in question was made, fittingly enough, at Grahamstown, the most "English" town in South Africa, in 1885. It was reprinted with complete appropriateness, in _The Cape Times_ of July 10th, 1899. The struggle which Mr. Merriman had foreseen fourteen years before was then near at hand; while Mr. Merriman himself had become a member of a ministry placed in power by the Bond for the avowed purpose of "combating the British Government."
"The situation is a grave one," he said. "It is not a question of localism; it is not a question of party politics; but it is a question whether the Cape Colony is to continue to be an integral part of the British Empire.... You will have to keep public men up to the mark, and each one of you will have to make up his mind whether he is prepared to see this colony remain a part of the British Empire, which carries with it obligations as well as privileges, or whether he is prepared to obey the dictates of the Bond. From the very first time, some years ago, when the poison began to be instilled into the country, I felt that it must come to this--Is England or the Transvaal to be the paramount force in South Africa?... Since then that institution has made a show of loyalty, while it stirred up disloyalty.... Some people, who should have known better, were dragged into the toils under the idea that they could influence it for good, but the whole teaching of history goes to show that when the conflict was between men of extreme views and moderate men, the violent section triumphed. And so we see that some moderate men are in the power of an institution whose avowed object is to combat the British Government. In any other country such an organisation could not have grown; but here, among a scattered population, it has insidiously and successfully worked.... No one who wishes well for the British Government could have read the leading articles of the _Zuid Africaan_, and _Express_, and _De Patriot_, in expounding the Bond principles, without seeing that the maintenance of law and order under the British Crown and the object they have in view are absolutely different things. My quarrel with the Bond is that it stirs up race differences. Its main object is to make the South African Republic the paramount power in South Africa."