These economic tensions lie at the base…

These economic tensions lie at the base of a political issue: the right of English speakers to have the vote.

With the rise of the gold industry and the growth of Johannesburg, the South African Republic has been inundated by so many English-speaking immigrants (called uitlanders by the Boers), most of them skilled mine workers, that by the 1890s they constitute a majority of the white male population.

The state's constitution limits the vote to males who have lived in the South African Republic for at least seven years, and Kruger fears that expanding the franchise will only enable mine owners to manipulate their workers and to thereby win political power.