CONDENSED CABLEGRAMS.

Manawatu Herald, 5 October 1899, Page 2

CONDENSED CABLEGRAMS.

«. The Transvaal. Seven hundred German* enrolled •tt Pretoria for service under rhe Transvaal are encamped at Randin jisi, and three hundred at Volksruet, near Laing's Nek. The mining companies at Johimneaburg are paying wages to inlander miners who rpmiin at the nines at the rar.e of £3 a day, > xchis've of food allowance. The Orange Free State authorities •re drawing recruits from Gn'qnaInnd West, acro3H the weßtern border. Oatfclp d<» o tined for Gape Colony are being impounded. Menaces are being used towards British subjects employed on tha aUways. At Bouxville, in a Bheep.farminT district, close to the Btsutulant border, Englishmen are being commandered. The loyalists afc Capetown, are indignant at the persistent apathy of 'he Premier (Mr Sohreiner) in regard to th« crisis. Mr Meyer (Chairman of the First Volksraad), Commandant Cronje and Messrs Weilback and Schalk Burgher j will be the chief Boer leaders. General Joubert, Commander-General, is not expected to remain at the front. Commandant Pronsloo will command the Orange Free State forces. All the residents of Johannesburg, including the British, have been commandeered (called upon for military service) by the Transvaal Government. President Krnger has decided to continue working the Crown Reef, Robinson, Bonanza and Ferreira mines. The Transvaal Government is assuming control of the lines of the I ' Netherlands Railway Coropanyt 1

4bWW 1 All the trains are actively employed in the transport of Boer troops, and especially in conveying them towards the Natal frontier. It is feared that the Boer troops will get beyond the control of the authorities. The jurisdiction of the civil Courts in the Transvaal has been suspended. President Kruger declares that his trcnps will act strictly on the defensive. Tho B iers at Volksrust have sent back incoming passengers by the railway fr jin Natal over the border to Charlestown. The Johannesburg down mail train has also been stepped. Charleatown, the terminus of the Natal Government railway's on the Transvaal border, has been deserted. Twenty thousand Boers are now encamped along the Natal border. They boast that they will sweep the English into the sea. Commandant Cronje has tried to incite Baralonga, a Bechuana chief, to fight the British. Colonel Sir W. P. Symons commands eight thousand regulars and 2300 voluntefers, stationed chiefly at Dundee and Ladysmith. It is believed that he will be able to act on the defensive until the Indian contingent arrives. The European and Cape mails now go to Natal by sea instead of overland troth Capetewiii Reports from Capetown state that Joshua Joubert, a son of the Boer Commander-General, has been placed in command of the troops at Laing's Hek; and Commandant Cronje com» rrian<3s 3000 men near Malmani, on {be Bechuanaland border^ If an army corps is sent from England, as now contemplated, the British forces in South Africa will number 68,000 men. Dr Leyds, the diplomatic representative of the Transvaal in Europe, predicts that the Transvaal Executive will declare war. The telegraph line between Natal and Johannesburg is interrupted. The " Daily Chronicle " says that President Kruger intends to appeal to the Queen and Lord Salisbury for peace. In the opinion of the same paper false pride ought not to deter the Boers from renewing the offer of the seven years' franchise, and of the appointment of a joint Commission of Inquiry. The" German newspapers have adopted a tone hostile to Great Britain This is partly attributed to the loss by the German firms of orders for guns for the Transvaal, and partly to a I desire to exort concessions iv Samoa. Trains from Johannesburg arrived at Newcastle a day late. The ! passengers were exhausted from want of food on the journey. Six hundred Orange Free State burghers in the vicinity of Harrismith, on the Drakensburg mountain range are proceeding nearer to the Natal border. Other burghers are occupying passes in the Drakensburg mountains. The Premier of Cape Colony (Mr . Schreiner) is being blamed for granting numerous gun licenses to Dutch Afrikanders on the borders, and also for allowing much railway rolling stock belonging to the Cape Colony to be retained in the Orange Free State. President Kruger has sent an ultimatum to Great Britain declaring that 1 the arrival of any further British rein--1 forcements on the Transvaal border j will be regarded as a casus belli.