for the agricultural Boers living on their estates in the quiet rural parts of the country. They were represented to us as pious men, good citizens according to their light, as landowners who had originally, some forty or fifty years ago, migrated from the more densely populated parts of the colony, partly to escape British rule which they disliked, and partly because they wished to live a quiet secluded country life as their fathers had done before them. Now, as an English agriculturist, whose forefathers have lived for many generations in the same house, on the same land, I naturally sympathised, and still sympathise very strongly, with those whose only wish is to be let alone and allowed to live their own life in their own way. But ever since I began to study this question in South Africa I have been asking myself the question, Where does the agricultural Boer come in in all this? How are his material interests benefited, or his religious aspirations gratified, by the misgovernment of his fellow-citizens? The enormous gains of monopolists and concessionaires do not go into his pockets, are not even spent in his country; and how does he reconcile it with his religious convictions that no serious attempt is made to stop the demoralisation of the Kaffirs by permitting the sale of spirits so vile and poisonous, that drunkenness is not only encouraged, but the health and utility of the labourer seriously impaired.

It is only fair to remember that many of the Boers hold in all honesty and sincerity religious ideas which seem to us extremely peculiar and out of date; it is difficult for an outsider to ascertain exactly what these ideas are, but the following extracts from arguments used in the Transvaal parliament may throw some light on them. On the 21st of July 1892 the question of taking measures to destroy the locusts came before the First Raad.

Mr. Roos said locusts were a plague, as in the days of King Pharaoh, sent by God, and the country would assuredly be loaded with shame and obloquy if it tried to raise its hand against the mighty hand of the Almighty.

The Chairman related a true story of a man whose farm was always spared by the locusts, until one day he caused some to be killed. His farm was then devastated. Mr. Stoop conjured the members not to constitute themselves terrestrial gods and oppose the Almighty.

Mr. Lucas Meyer raised a storm by ridiculing the arguments of the former speakers, and comparing the locusts to beasts of prey which they destroyed.

Mr. Labuschagne said the locusts were quite different from beasts of prey. They were a special plague sent by God for their sinfulness.

Again, on the 5th of August 1895 a memorial was read in the First Raad from Krugersdorp praying that the Raad would pass a law to prohibit the sending up of bombs into the clouds to bring down rain, as it was a defiance of God, and would most likely bring down a visitation from the Almighty. The Memorial Committee reported that they disapproved of such a thing, but, at the same time, they did not consider they could make a law on the subject.

Mr. A. D. Wolmarans said he was astonished at this advice, and he expected better from the Commission. If one of their children fired towards the clouds with a revolver, they would thrash him. Why should they permit people to mock at the Almighty in this manner? It was terrible to contemplate. He hoped that the Raad would take steps to prevent such things happening.

Mr. Du Toit (Carolina) said that he had heard that there were companies in Europe which employed numbers of men to do nothing but shoot at the clouds, simply to bring down rain. It was wonderful that men could think of doing such things; they ought to be prohibited here. He did not consider that the Raad would be justified in passing a law on the subject however; but he thought, all the same, that they should express their strongest disapproval of such practices.

The Chairman said if such things were actually done-and he was unaware of it-those who did it ought to be prevented from repeating it.

Is not the agricultural Boer clever enough to see that 22,000 farmers cannot possibly hope to continue indefinitely to misgovern double the number of fellow-citizens, cleverer, richer, and much more energetic than themselves?

And now the reader will ask, what have the Boers themselves to say in answer to all this?

Well, I have had the opportunity of talking to several of them, both official and unofficial, and as far as I could make out they have very little to say indeed. The chief argument used was that they had a right to do as they liked with their own; but the question is, is the gold their own? and have they a right to do as they like with it?

If they had stuck from the first to their rights as private proprietors and refused to sell any land or give any mining rights to any one, they might have been in a strong position. But this is exactly what they have not done.

They were anxious to see the Uitlanders develop the mineral resources of their country,13 and have, from the President downwards, 13 The accompanying letter will show the attitude taken up by the Transvaal Government in 1883:

Albemarle Hotel, 1 Albemarle St., W.
December 21st, 1883.

Sir, I am directed by the President and Deputation of the Transvaal to acknowledge your letter of the 19th of December, inquiring whether the Transvaal Government will view with satisfaction the development of the properties on which concessions have been granted, and whether the companies acquiring concessions can count upon Government protection. In reply, I am to state that the President and Deputation cannot refrain from expressing surprise and indignation at your directors thinking such an inquiry necessary, as it is absurd to suppose that the Government of the Transvaal would grant a concession on the Lisbon and Berlyn or any other farm or plot of ground and then refuse to protect the rights conveyed thereby. The Government desire to see the mineral resources of the Transvaal developed to their fullest extent, and will give every assistance incumbent on them to that end. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,

J. Davies Esq., Secretary to the Lisbon-Berlyn (Transvaal)

Gold Fields (Limited).

EWALD ESSELEN,

Secretary.

with hardly any exception, been only too anxious to make what they could out of them. They have sold him lands, mining rights, options to buy their farms (President Kruger himself has been receiving very large sums for the option to buy his own land) for the highest prices they could obtain, and not one farthing would they have received from the Uitlander in these ways except for the purpose of mining gold, or on account of the increased value given to the land by the goldmining industry. Now that the Uitlander has spent tens of millions sterling to enable the gold to be produced, and that the Boer, as an individual, has extracted every farthing he could for his land and his rights, has he still a right to say: "The gold still belongs to us as a small close borough of voters, to use as we like, and even to hand over at our pleasure to concessionaires and outsiders'?

This argument hardly seems to hold water.

With regard to railway rates, the only excuse offered me by one Boer official, and another prominent ex-official, was that it cost more to bring the goods in bullock-wagons!

Now this might be a good excuse if the Boer Government were to say: If you do not like the charges of the existing railway, make a railway for yourselves, and try if you can carry goods cheaper.'

This is exactly what they do not say.

They say 'You shall not make any other railway. You will use this railway or none, and you will pay any rates they choose to ask you, even up to 74d. per ton per mile on the roughest of rough goods.'

In conclusion I can only repeat that I commenced this inquiry with an unbiassed mind and with no preconceived opinions. I have not concealed my own opinions, but at the same time I have endeavoured to state the facts clearly and dispassionately so as to give every one the opportunity of judging for himself how far the grievances of the Uitlanders are sentimental and imaginary, and how far they are real and substantial.

H. M. MEYSEY-THOMPSON.

GREAT BRITAIN'S OPPORTUNITY

IN CHINA

THE decision of the British Government to guarantee a loan of 12,000,000l. sterling to China at 3 per cent. interest bids fair to be an epoch-making event in the history of our relations with that empire. Although the trade of Great Britain and her dependencies with China is about two and a half times as great as that of all the other countries of the globe put together, it cannot be truly said that hitherto this country has availed herself to the full of the advantages that this great commercial predominance ought to confer. Out of the enormous number of ports scattered along the vast extent of Chinese seaboard, only eighteen are at present open by treaty to the trade of the world, while the commerce with the interior is hampered and strangled by the notorious and arbitrary exactions imposed by the local mandarins under the pretext of likin duties. How these abuses grew up in spite of the treaties of 1842 and 1878 is no new tale; it suffices to say that at present China, with her four hundred millions of inhabitants and with a vast area of productive territory, the very garden of the world, plays a comparatively insignificant part in international commerce. Her minerals, probably the most important of the world, are absolutely undeveloped; railways, in spite of some advance made in 1896, are still practically non-existent; manufactories are ridiculously few in number; while good roads, those indispensable aids to civilisation, are conspicuous by their absence.

In a general way the public debt of a country may be said to be a fair index of her capacity and resources. It may be useful here to give a brief statement of the public debt of some of the principal countries of the world per head of population.

These figures speak for themselves, and we scarcely need even Mr. Chamberlain's spirited appeals to our national enterprise to enable us to realise that this condition of things in the most populous and undeveloped region of the globe concerns us, our prosperity, and our very existence more than those of any other country.

How, then, is Great Britain to avail herself of this opportunity for extending that commerce which is her very lifeblood? To answer this we must carefully consider the terms on which the Government are reported to have agreed to the loan, and see how far they satisfy what we ought to ask for. The Chancellor of the Exchequer warned us not to consider them as accurate or complete, but, as modified by the subsequent corrections made from Pekin, they are probably not very far wrong.

The first condition provides for the opening of three more treaty ports-Talienwan, Shanyin, and Nanning-in addition to the existing number, making twenty-one in all. To this proviso it is said that Russia, with more or less acquiescence on the part of France, is offering the most strenuous opposition. It is difficult to believe that such opposition can be seriously persevered in. Consider what a treaty port is. It is one in which foreign subjects may own property and reside; where foreign vessels may load and discharge; where merchandise, both foreign and native, may be imported and exported, under a fixed tariff of duties; whence foreign goods may be sent into the interior, and native produce may be brought down from the interior for shipment abroad, on certain conditions.. At these points the collection of duties is under the control of the Maritime Customs, which, as is well known, is an imperial service, directed from Pekin, and exercising supervision over the trade carried on in steamers and foreign vessels irrespective of nationality. The pecuniary benefits derived by the Chinese Exchequer from the Imperial Maritime Customs service are too notorious to require dwelling on; the revenue collected therefrom in 1895 amounted to 3,497,4021. and in 1896 3,763,2281., and this source of income, which is the only item honestly accounted for and paid into the Exchequer at Pekin, is practically the only good security that China has to offer to financiers in return for loan. The more treaty ports, the greater the revenue at the disposal of the Central Government at Pekin, and the greater the means and prospect of developing the Empire. On what plea can Russia resist such a proposal? Can it be that she wishes to pursue the same policy towards China that has been adopted towards Turkey and to deprecate any interference with the gradual process of decay

any

VOL. XLIII-No. 252

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