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African race were, in their estimation, Canaanites, whom they, as the chosen people, might go forth, the Bible in one hand and an ox-whip or rifle in the other, to extirpate, or to employ as hewers of wood and drawers of water, with as little compunction as Cromwell or Ireton felt when they caused Irishmen and "Malignants" to be slaughtered, or shipped by thousands as slaves to the Barbadoes, or as the Pilgrim Fathers when they slew the redskins of the West. And from that day to this the Act of Emancipation has been looked upon by a large section of the Dutch population as a wrong done to them for which there was no justification.

Opinions may differ as to the degree of harshness with which the natives have been habitually treated by the Boers. But the theory of the two independent Dutch Republics, as expressed in their constitutional law, or "Grondvet," has been and is that no native can under any circumstances be admitted to the privileges of either Church or State. The inhabitants, of whatever origin, of the colonies where English law prevails have, on the contrary, sought to admit the Kaffir to both. The natives themselves have not failed to appreciate the difference between the two theories, and have become restless and uneasy whenever the establishment of Dutch rule seemed probable or possible.

It used to be maintained that British subjects could not divest themselves of their allegiance, could not unite to form an independent State. To enforce this principle, and to put a stop to an independent war which was being waged between the trekking Boers. and the Zulus, officials and soldiers were sent by Sir

George Napier, the Cape Governor (1838), to Natal. And when the Boers trekked again from Natal to the Orange State, Sir Harry Smith followed them, fought the battle of Boomplatz (August, 1848), and shed British soldiers' blood to establish British sovereignty there. Three years later (1851) a despatch from Lord Grey to Sir Harry Smith declared all this to have been a mistake; that blood had been shed vainly; and all that had been done was reversed. No extension, however small, of her Majesty's dominions in South Africa was henceforward to be sanctioned.

"The ultimate abandonment of the Orange River territory" [it runs]" must be a settled point of our policy. You will distinctly understand that any wars, however sanguinary, which may afterwards occur between different tribes and communities which will be left in a state of independence beyond the colonial boundary, are to be considered as affording no ground for your interference."

And so Sir Harry Smith was recalled, and Sir George Cathcart, who succeeded him, concluded (January 17, 1852) "the Sand River Convention" with the Boers, by which the Transvaal was made an independent State, and the British Government undertook to abstain from all interference with native tribes bordering on it. Two years later (1854), the government of the Orange Free State was handed over to a Convention of Boers by Sir George Clerk, on behalf of England.

But the native difficulty could not be thus got rid of. Sir George Grey, who became Governor in 1854, was not long in perceiving and pointing out that the policy

of disintegration was a serious impediment to the peace, progress, and civilization of the country, and that the undisputed authority of a single paramount civilized power capable of enforcing fixed principles of conduct towards the natives was essential to peace and tranquillity. The Orange Free State had by their troubles with the natives been made to feel this, and in December, 1858, had by a resolution of the Raad proposed reunion, by federation or otherwise, with the Cape Colony. Sir George Grey did all he could to promote it, and at first the Home Government was disposed to support him. But eventually the Colonial Secretary, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, announced that on consideration he had decided against it; the proposal fell to the ground, and a golden opportunity was lost.

Nevertheless, and in spite of the rule laid down by Lord Grey, it was found necessary to intervene between the Orange River Boers and the Basutos. The latter, twice rescued by Sir George Grey's mediation, were afterwards, and after suffering much loss, saved by Sir Philip Wodehouse's good offices from annihilation, and were located (1868) on territory assigned to them by the Cape Colony. The Griquas also had a territory given to them in what became East Griqualand. And at Kimberley, when the discovery of the diamond-fields (1870) attracted a multitude of people to the edge of the Orange Free State, where there was pending a boundarydispute with a native chief, British police and troops had to occupy the town to save it from disorder; the boundary-dispute was settled by the payment of £90,000 to the Orange Free State, and the territory of

West Griqualand was added (October 27, 1871) to the British Empire.

Lord Carnarvon became Colonial Minister in 1874. The success of confederation in Canada was an encouragement to him to try a similar scheme in South Africa, and to abandon in favour of confederation the policy of disintegration initiated twenty years before.

There were few South Africans who did not recognize that federation of some kind was an end to be desired. It was obvious that half a dozen contiguous territories, under distinct Governments, with different customs duties, different systems of law, different credit in the money market, and different policy towards the natives, could not progress in the same way as if there were unity of action, which would provide even justice, unrestricted commerce, and the opening up of the country by roads, railways, and telegraphs, and which would secure peace on the frontier. But the conflicting interests and antagonisms were so many and so great as to raise almost insuperable difficulties.-Life of Sir Bartle Frere. 1895.

THE COLONIZING GENIUS OF THE BRITISH

PEOPLE

BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY

IF, as at some great memorial review of armies, the colonizing nations since 1500 were now by name called up, France would answer not at all; Portugal and Holland would stand apart with dejected eyes-dimly

revealing the legend of Fuit Ilium; Spain would be seen sitting in the distance, and, like Judæa on the Roman coins, weeping under her palm-tree in the vast regions of the Drellana; whilst the British race would be heard upon every wind, coming on with mighty hurrahs, full of power and tumult, as some "Hailstone Chorus," and crying aloud to the five hundred millions of Burmah, China, Japan, and the infinite islands, to make ready their paths before them.

Are not the advantages of these islanders which carry them thus potently ahead products of British energy? Those twenty-five thousands of ships, whose graceful shadows darken the blue waters in every climate-did they build themselves? That myriad of acres, laid out in the watery cities of docks-are they sown by the rain as the fungus or the daisy? Britain has advantages at this stage of the race, but at starting we were all equal. In such contests the power constitutes the title; the man that has the ability to go ahead is the man entitled to go ahead; and the nation that can win the place of leader is the nation that ought to do so.

This colonizing genius of the British people appears upon a grand scale in Australia, Canada, and, as we may remind the else forgetful world, in the United States of America; which States are our children, prosper by our blood, and have ascended to an overshadowing altitude from an infancy tended by ourselves.-Ceylon. 1843.

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