war.

Here I only record the general sentiment of British South African Imperialists, on German policy, prior to the present If I can form no definite conclusion as to German Imperial policy from 1884 to 1892, and from 1892 to 1899, no doubt the fact that the public of foreign countries have no access to the records of the Foreign Office at Berlin will prove a sufficient excuse. Of one thing one can feel perfectly convinced that if the German Chancellor had conceived designs of ousting British influence in the Transvaal and the Cape and South Africa generally, it would not be for love of the beaux yeux of Pretoria.

As to an alleged "Conspiracy" between the two Republican Governments, the German Chancellor, and the Bond party in Cape Town, to oust the British Empire one hears very much; but, except by inference and induction, one is shown no proofs; on the contrary, as I shall make clear later on, we have emphatic denials on the South African side-both in the Republics and the Cape.

Even as to such a design, embodied in an alliance as formal as may be, it must in fairness be remembered that there is no absolute wickedness in a German Chancellor desiring the predominance of Germany, in extent of territory or in trade, in South Africa, or anywhere else; and in availing himself of the absolute independence thrust on one former British dependency-the Orange Free State-and the modified independence surrendered after defeat to another British dependency. And similarly, that the object of creating a Dutch-speaking and Dutch-ruled South African Dominion through the Governments of Pretoria and Bloemfontein is a perfectly intelligible ideal for Dutch-speaking folk, who have had so many reasons not to admire the British Colonial Office, to entertain.

The case of the Bond party in Cape Colony is quite different. Such an alliance would constitute the crime of rebellion in a particularly aggravated form. It would indeed be monstrous, as the present High Commissioner put it, if the Dutch-descended British colonists were not loyal. Absolute liberty, absolute equality, political power to the

extent of nominating the Ministers of the Crown, is their lot in the Cape Colony-and in all British possessions no disability rests on any European of non-British descent.

I venture to submit to British South African Imperialists a view of the policy of some of the Bond leaders—for the rank and file have sent thousands of armed rebels to the field, and indeed Bond Members of the Cape Parliament have taken up arms as well-which I have tentatively held, which, if correct, would harmonise their professions, public and private, of loyalty to the Empire with their sympathy with their kindred over the Orange River, and their desire to see them maintain their separate state existence. Living statesmen who have sat in the Imperial Cabinet, even at one time Lord Beaconsfield, looked forward to the future of the Colonies as one of absolute severance from the Empire. "Perish India," is a well-known phrase. The Colonial Minister of Majuba Hill, his successor of the London Convention of 1884, and Prime Minister Gladstone cannot have been inspired with that passionate devotion to the great mission of the Empire and the maintenance of its integrity which now thrills through its citizens. These statesmen certainly considered themselves loyal; and, no doubt, even their opponents would not dispute their loyalty in intention, however they may denounce what they regard as their unwisdom. I have recalled how, at the Queen's Jubilee banquet in Johannesburg of June 1897, I heard a Dutch loyalist who has sacrificed home and friends for his loyalty -refer to what he assumed to be the inevitable dissolution of the Empire. May it not be that the independent Afrikander nation, contemplated by some of the Bond leaders, was one to be evolved by this peaceful process?

None the less it is incumbent on citizens of the Empire to demonstrate the utter failure of that ideal to rise to the true conception of the destinies of the race. That they will resist it to the death on the field of battle they have shown. But the task remains of convincing the minds of our Boer fellow-citizens, and of some among our allies of the United States. The work before those suited for it in South Africa

to-day is to convince all who have, for good or ill, thrown in their lot with the future of South Africa, that the growth of a local patriotism and the cherishing of proud memories of a bygone ancestry are no more incompatible with the wider patriotism of the Empire than the upholding of the ancient nationality of Wales or of the newer nationalities of Canada and Australia.

CHAPTER XII.

THE HEMMING IN OF THE REPUBLICS-THE ACTION OF

MR. CECIL RHODES.

Or the policy of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, late Prime Minister of Cape Colony, I have no first-hand information; as, to my regret, he is almost the only one of the leading men, living in South Africa of recent years, whom I have never had an opportunity of meeting. My conclusions as to his policy, therefore, have to do rather with its results in action than its intention.

The annexation, by Mr. Rhodes's expedition in 1889, of Mashonaland, on the north of the Transvaal, followed by that of Matabeleland, completely cut off the expansion of the Boer Republics to the north. For the first time in the two hundred and fifty years of Boer life in South Africa the trek was at an end. This was a serious social factor in the life of the Boer, whose sons hitherto had always looked to the beaconing off of new farms for newly established homesteads. This aspect of the end of the trek was seen clearly enough by the Transvaal Boers, and the so-called Ferreira Trek across the Limpopo was attempted in 1890; but the expedition was met and turned back by the then Administrator of the newly-named province of Rhodesia, Dr. Jameson, afterwards to be the leader of the Raid.

The funds for this latest of British annexations were, as Mr. Rhodes has explained, furnished by the famous diamond mines of the De Beers' Company; and a charter was procured from the Imperial Government, vesting the administration of the new province in a company, framed on the seventeenth

century English model of the old East India Company. Mr. Rhodes's party in the Cape Parliament was, until 1896, the date of the Jameson Raid, supported by the organisation of the Bond.

The social effects in the life of the Boer of the Transvaal of the cutting off of the trek were great; the political effects were greater. As I have pointed out already, the Conventions of Pretoria of 1881 and of London of 1884, expressly permitted to the Transvaal Boers the right of expansion to the north of the Limpopo, if they should choose to exercise it, merely stipulating that agreements with Kaffir chiefs to the east or the west of the Republic should be subject to Imperial revision. The Imperial policy was to retain the trade route to the north, and to control any access to the sea which the Boer Republics might seek to establish. Now, the Boers had neglected to exercise the right of expansion; and the Rhodes annexation definitely closed the door.

As I have explained in what I have said as to the policy of President Kruger, a substitute, or, at least, some slight solatium was offered to President Kruger in the shape of a seaport on the Indian Ocean at Kosi Bay. This in return for the promise of the Republic to assist the Chartered Company in the maintenance of order in Rhodesia. But this right, too, under circumstances already described, was allowed to lapse, and was not renewed in the Convention of 1894, annexing Swaziland to the Transvaal.

The extreme importance to the Empire of the annexation of Rhodesia has only lately been realised in the United Kingdom. It is not a question of whether Chartered Company Government is good or not, or whether direct Imperial rule would be preferable. It is that some form of British annexation was urgently required to maintain the trade route to the interior of Africa. British Parliaments, unfortunately, until quite recently, have not taken wide views of foreign relations, or of the necessity of safeguarding British trade. Much more than that, a Treasury, with a truly superstitious reverence for keeping down expense-an economy that in