that the question of Transvaal independence ought to precede the question of South African Union. After a prolonged debate the Ministry ultimately avoided defeat by withdrawing their Conference proposals on June 29th, 1880. As soon as the despatches containing reports of the debates in the Cape Parliament, and information of the virtual defeat of the Colonial Ministry on the Federation question reached England, Lord Kimberley, the new Secretary of State for the Colonies, at once telegraphed to Sir Bartle Frere that the Government had advised the Queen to replace him by another Governor.*

The news of Sir Bartle Frere's recall (Note 14) produced a very general and a very sincere expression of regret. Addresses containing such opinions were forwarded from all parts of the Cape Colony. Judged by the test of "interests involved," no community was better able to pronounce an opinion on the merits or demerits of Sir Bartle Frere's administration than the inhabitants of the Albany district. The verdict of Albany was clear and unmistakeable :—

"Never did colonial governor find himself at the very outset of his duties confronted with so many and such startling difficulties as met you soon after you reached our shores. Never did governor more effectually grasp the situation, and more successfully deal with these difficulties than you did. You carried the Galeka war, which had been forced upon the colony, to a successful issue. Through your instrumentality the eastern frontiers of the colony were placed in a safer and more settled condition than they had been for many years.

66 We have watched with the most anxious interest your career during that eventful period when the affairs of the neighbouring colony of Natal were administered by you; we perfectly understand that at that crisis the deep-laid plans and cruel purposes of the savage and bloodthirsty King of the Zulus were just reaching their full develop* C-2655.

ment, and that his inevitable and long-effected encounter with the British power could no longer be averted; it was, no doubt, unfortunate for that colony, and for the honour of the British name, that you were on the spot ready to sacrifice every personal consideration, and to undertake one of the heaviest and most tremendous responsibilities ever undertaken by servant of the Crown. Your excellent plans, your steady determination, your unflagging perseverance, led to the downfall of a barbarous tyrant, the break-up of a most formidable and unwarrantable military power, and the establishment of peaceful relations, which, properly managed, might have ensured the lasting peace and prosperity which you have systematically desired to secure for South Africa."*

Meanwhile the Boer leaders, Messrs Kruger and Joubert, were writing to their sympathisers in England, "The fall of Sir Bartle Frere will be . . . useful."+ It is a significant fact that the letter in which this sentence occurs was dated June 26th, that is to say, three days before the actual decision of the Cape Parliament (June 29th). It is significant, because it shows to how large an extent the defeat of the colonial ministry, and the failure of Sir Bartle Frere to carry through the South African federation, was due to the fact that it was known in the colony that he the governor of the colony-was deprived by a swing of the political pendulum of the support of his official superiors, and—what was still more important— of the support of public opinion in England.

I do not think there is a more painful record in the annals of colonial administration than this story of the abandonment and betrayal of Sir Bartle Frere.

We need not trouble ourselves with the reproofs administered from Downing Street, with the complaint that he had exceeded the letter of his instructions in not referring to the Imperial Government before he sent

what was practically an ultimatum to the Zulu king. Sir George Grey, who had anticipated Frere in the circumstances of his own recall, had also provided a sufficient answer to this and similar complaints, when, twenty years before, he penned the indignant question :

*

"Can a man who, on a distant and exposed frontier, surrounded by difficulties, with invasions of Her Majesty's territories threatening on several points, assumes a responsibility which he guided by many circumstances which he can neither record nor remember as they came hurrying on one after the other, be fairly judged of in respect to the amount of responsibility he assumes by those who, in the quiet of distant offices in London, know nothing of the anxieties or nature of the difficulties he had to encounter ? "

But how was England misled? How was it that England was thus unjust to the man, who was, after all, only faithfully and skilfully discharging the duties of his office? Sir Bartle Frere was in no way responsible for any military error. The disaster of Isandlhwana, by which he was discredited, was in reality the clearest evidence of his foresight, and the most complete justification of his action; for a barbarous power, which could annihilate a British regiment in the open, was obviously no safe neighbour for Natal; and what security could there be for the 400,000 Europeans in South Africa so long as the absolute master of that power entertained the design, or even believed in the possibility of uniting the 3,000,000 Bantu in a war of race?

There is an explanation which lies ready to hand. We can turn to that storehouse of political experience, the literature of ancient Greece, and read in the pages of the historian of Athens the comprehensive verdict, "a Democracy is incapable of Empire."

But is this sufficient? Is it sufficient for us who believe that a democracy is capable of empire, of an empire with Correspondence,” etc., printed April 17th, 1860, p. 26.

* 66

wider boundaries and higher aims than any empire yet recorded in history? I think not. I think we shall seek for a temporary disorder before we admit the existence of an incurable malady in the body politic.

At the time that this blow fell England had lately stood face to face with her great world-rival Russia; and in the moment of that ordeal she had realised, as she had never realised before, the dignity and the responsibility of her Imperial position. What wonder if, at such a time, when the multitudinous interests of an empire in four continents were crowding upon her, England forgot the suspended union of South Africa, forgot the deadly peril of Natal, forgot the iniquitous system by which a whole people had been converted into a man-slaying machine, forgot that Ketshwayo was the grandson of Tshaka, and knew only that a British regiment had been sacrificed to a barbarous enemy. Was it strange, too, if England in her vexation and alarm did not discriminate too nicely in visiting her displeasure? "Yes, we arraign her, but she, The weary Titan, with deaf Ears, and labour-dimmed eyes, Regarding neither to right Nor left, goes passively by, Staggering on to her goal; Bearing on shoulders immense, Atlantean, the load,

Well nigh not to be borne,

Of the too vast orb of her fate."

And the remedy? It lies in the creation of a central authority which shall embody the consolidated resources of the empire. Such an authority must include representatives from every province of the empire, that so it may be informed with equal exactness of the necessities of each component part, and control without dispute the Imperial exchequer formed by their united contributions. Entrusted to such an authority, we may hope that an Imperial policy will at length be unaffected by the side issues of party politics, and unrestricted by the exigences of national finance.

E

CHAPTER IV.

THE BOERS.

ARLY in the year 1881 Englishmen were startled by the receipt of strange intelligence. The garrisons in the Transvaal had been surrounded and isolated by insurgents. On the 20th of December a detachment of the 94th, more than 250 strong, marching from Lydenburg to Pretoria, were attacked in a narrow defile, Bronkhorst Spruit; the commanding officer and fifty-four men were killed, seven officers and ninety-one men were wounded, and the rest were taken prisoners. At the end of January General Colley, who was in command of the troops in Natal, advanced to the relief of the garrisons in the Transvaal. He found that his way was barred. Lang's Nek, at the entrance of the pass over the Drakensberg leading from Natal to the Transvaal, had been occupied by the insurgents. The attack made by the force under General Colley, 1100 strong, on the 28th of January, was repulsed with heavy loss. Colonel Deane and all the staff and mounted officers were shot down, and 190 rank and file were reported as dead, wounded, or missing. Ten days later, on the 8th of February, as General Colley was patrolling the road to Newcastle with a force of 300 men, in order to maintain his line of communication between that place and the camp at Mount Prospect, he was attacked at Ingogo Heights. In this engagement four officers were killed, and three were wounded, and 150 men were reported killed or wounded. But the crowning disaster was still to come. On the night of the 26th of