ter outside its borders, and it has continued by its practice to banish the black man and to rid itself of trouble on that score. My reader if he will refer to the map will see that now, since the annexation of the Transvaal by Great Britain, the Free State is surrounded by British territory, for Basuto land, which lies to the west of the Free State between the Cape Colony and Natal, is a portion of the Cape Colony. This being so I cannot understand how the Orange Free State can be comprised in any political Confederation. The nature of such a Confederation seems to require one Head, one flag, and one common nationality. I cannot conceive that the Savoyards should confederate with the Swiss,-let their interests be ever so identical,—unless Savoy were to become a Swiss Canton. The Dutch Republic is no doubt free to do as she pleases, which Savoy is not; but the idea of Confederation presumes that she would give herself up to the English flag. There may no doubt be a Confederation without the Orange Free State, and that Confederation might offer advantages so great that the Dutchmen of the Free State should ultimately feel disposed to give themselves up to Great Britain; but the question for the present must be considered as subject to considerable disturbance from the existence of the Republic. The roads from the Cape Colony to the Transvaal and the Diamond Fields lie through the Free State, and there would necessarily arise questions of transit and of Custom duties which would make it expedient that the districts should be united under one flag; but I can foresee no pretext for compulsion.

In the annexation of the Transvaal there was at any rate an assignable cause, of which we were not slow to take advantage. In regard to the Orange Free State nothing of the kind is to be expected. The population is

chiefly Dutch. The political influence is altogether Dutch. A reference to the above table will show how the Dutchman succeeds, whether for good or ill,-in ridding himself of the coloured man. The Free State is a large district; but it contains altogether only 45,000 inhabitants,—and there are on the soil no more than 15,000 natives.

I will next say a word as to the Transkeian districts, which also have been supposed to be outside the dominion of the British Crown and which therefore it would seem to be just to exclude were we to effect a Confederation of our British South African Colonies.* But all these districts would certainly be included in any Confederation, with great advantage to the British Colonies, and with greater advantages to the Kafirs themselves who live beyond the Kei. I must again refer my readers to the map. They will see on the South Eastern Coast of the continent a district called Kafraria,—as distinct from British Kafraria further west,-the independence of which is signified by its name. Here they will find the river Kei, which till lately was supposed to be the boundary of the British territories,-beyond which the Kafir was supposed to live according to his own customs, and in undisturbed possession of independent rule. But this, even before the late Kafir outbreak, was by no means the case. A good deal of British annexation goes on in different parts of the world of which but little mention is made in the British Parliament, and but little notice taken even by the British press. It will be seen that in this territory there live 501,000 natives, and it is here, no doubt, that Kafir habits are to be found in their fullest perfection. The red Kafir is here, the man who

It must at least have seemed so when the Permissive Bill for South African Confederation was passed. The present disturbance will no doubt lead to the annexation of these districts.

dyes himself and his blanket and his wives with red clay, who ecshews breeches and Christianity, and meditates on the coming happy day in which the pestilent interfering European may be driven at length into the sea. It is here that Kreli till lately reigned the acknowledged king of Kafirdom as being the chief of the Galekas. Kreli had foughten and been conquered and been punished by the loss of much of his territory;--but still was allowed to rule over a curtailed empire. His population is now not above 66,000. Among even these,-among the Pondos, who are much more numerous than the Galekas, our influence is maintained by European magistrates, and the Kafirs, though allowed to do much according to their pleasures, are not allowed to do everything. The Pondos number, I believe, as many as 200,000. In the remainder of Kafraria British rule is nearly as dominant to the east as to the west of the Kei. Adam Kok's land,-or no man's land, as it has been called,-running up north into Natal, we have already annexed to the Cape Colony, and no parliamentary critic at home is at all the wiser. The Fingos hold much of the remainder, and wherever there is a Fingo there is a British subject. There would now be no difficulty in sweeping Kafraria into a general South African Confederation.

I will now deal with those enumerated in the above table who are at present undoubtedly subjects of Her Majesty, and who are bound to comply with British laws. The Cape Colony contains nearly three-quarters of a million of people, and is the only portion of South Africa which has what may be called a large white population; but that population, though comparatively large,-something over a quarter of a million,-is less in number than the inhabitants of the single city of Melbourne. One colonial town in Australia, and that a town not more than

a quarter of a century old, gives a home to more white people than the whole of the Cape Colony, which was colonized with white people two hundred years before Melbourne was founded. And on looking at the white population of the Cape Colony a further division must be made in order to give the English reader a true idea of the Colony in reference to England. A British colony to the British mind is a land away from home to which the swarming multitudes of Great Britain may go and earn a comfortable sustenance, denied to them in the land of their birth by the narrowness of its limits and the greatness of its population, and may do so with the use of their own language, and in subjection to their own laws. We have other senses of the word Colony, for we call military garrisons Colonies,—such as Malta, and Gibraltar, and Bermuda. But the true Colony has, I think, above been truly described; and thus the United States of America have answered to us the purpose of a Colony as well as though they had remained under British rule. We should, therefore, endeavour to see how far the Cape Colony has answered the desired purpose.

The settlement was Dutch in its origin, and was peopled by Dutchmen, -with a salutary sprinkling of Protestant French who assimilated themselves after a time to the Dutch in language and religion. It is only by their religion that we can now divide the Dutch and the English; and on enquiry I find that about 150,000 souls belong to the Dutch Reformed and Lutheran Churches, leaving 85,000 of English descent in the Colony. If to these we add the 20,000 white persons inhabiting Natal, and 15,000 at the Diamond Fields, we shall have the total English population of South Africa;— for the Europeans of the Transvaal, as of the Orange Free State, are a Dutch people. There are therefore

about 120,000 persons of British descent in these South African districts,—the number being little more than that of the people of the small unobtrusive Colony which we call Tasmania.

I hope that nobody will suppose from this that I regard a Dutch subject of the British Crown as being less worthy of regard than an English subject. My remarks are not intended to point in that direction, but to show what is the nature of our duties in South Africa. Thus are there about 220,000* persons of Dutch descent, though the emigrants from Holland to that land during the present century have been but few;-so few that I have found no trace of any batch of such emigrants; and there are but 120,000 of English descent although the country has belonged to England for three-quarters of a century! The enquirer is thus driven to the conclusion that South Africa has hardly answered the purpose of a British Colony.

And I hope that nobody will suppose from this that I regard the coloured population of Africa as being unworthy of consideration. My remarks, on the other hand, are made with the object of showing that in dealing with South Africa the British Parliament and the British Ministers should think, - not indeed exclusively, but chiefly of the coloured people. When we speak of Confederation among these Colonies and districts we should enquire whether such Confederation will be good for those races whom at home we lump under the name of Kafirs. As a Colony, in the proper sense of the word, the Cape Colony has not been success