They have no taste for agriculture, much less cally English. There is no social separafor commerce or mining or manufactures; tion between the two races, who intermarry but love to live alone in the midst of a huge freely, and have much the same interests, exfarm, where they can see no smoke but that cept so far as the interests of the townsman of their own hearth, hunting the wild crea- diverge from those of the farmer. Nor was tures, and driving their cattle hither and there any sharp political distinction till, in thither where the pasture is best, ruling 1880, the Boers of the Transvaal revolted their black herdsmen in their own grim way. against the British government that had No people has shown less taste for politics, and been established there three years previously. it is probably from this distaste for associa- The sturdy resistance which the Boers then tion and town life, which has spread from the made to the British troops evoked so warm Dutch to their English neighbors, that Cape and general a sympathy from the colonial Colony is, of all the greater British colonies, Dutch that some fears were entertained of a that one in which there has been the least civil war within the Colony itself. An outactive political life, a fact the more remark- break of race hostility there would have able because there is no new country which been a grave misfortune, and the desire to has crowded more history into its short career avert ch an outbreak was the strongest than South Africa has done. The Boers are among the motives that induced the British strong, active fellows, good marksmen at government to restore to the Transvaal (in short range, full of courage and capable of 1881) its independence. Since 1881 the Dutch enduring great fatigue, unpolished as well as have formed in the colony a political party, ignorant, but kindly and given to hospitality. which at present commands a majority in the The women lead sedentary lives, and are, by Assembly. They are not, however, an anti

, common consent, seldom attractive, and still English party. They are an agricultural more seldom intellectually cultivated; but party, to some extent an anti-native party, they too showed wonderful spirit and con- in some slight degree a protectionist party; stancy in the dangers and hardships of the but they have never shown any disaffection terrible Zulu wars.

to the British crown, and their desire to These characteristics belong to the Boers secure the minimum of interference by the generally all over South Africa, in the Brit- home government is shared by the English ish colonies of the Cape and Natal as well as members of the legislature. That the danger in the republics of the Orange Free State and of race enmity, and of hostility to the conthe Transvaal. But they vary in intensity ac- nection with the mother-country, has been so cording to the degree in which the Boer has far avoided is mainly due to the efforts of been affected by English institutions, and by two statesmen. One of these persons is Mr. the ideas and habits of the English settlers. Hofmeyr, himself of Dutch stock, a shrewd,

In Cape Colony there have been ninety cool, and somewhat taciturn man, who was years of British rule, with a steady, though one of the chief founders of the so-called not large, influx of English and Scotch col- « Afrikander » party-the party which is, onists. Of the 380,000 whites, rather more first of all, African, and therefore primarily, than half are of Dutch origin, or habitually though not exclusively, Dutch in sentiment. speak Dutch, though of course it is as hard The other statesman is Mr. Cecil Rhodes, an to say who is practically to be treated as a Englishman born, the son of a country clerDutchman as it would be to say who is to be gyman, and himself a graduate of Oxford deemed a German in Iowa or a Swede in Min- University. No man in South Africa has nesota; for language and origin do not neces- been more steadily attached to the British sarily govern a man's habits and sympathies. connection, or has done half so much to seThat the process of Anglicization should have cure for Britain those vast territories to the proceeded so slowly in these ninety years west and to the north of the Transvaal, which may be ascribed, not only to the singular were coveted by both the Transvaal Republic conservatism of the Boers, but also to the and by the German Empire. But in his politthinness of population, the Boers living in ical career in Cape Colony, of which he was small villages, or scattered over a vast area, prime minister from July, 1890, till January, with few occasions for contact with the 1896, Mr. Rhodes succeeded in obtaining the British part of the population. To-day the support of the Dutch party, and labored assidcountry districts, especially near Cape Town uously to bring about a unity of sentiment and in the Western Province generally, are and aim between the Dutch and the British almost wholly Dutch, while the townsfolk, elements in the population. The energy and even if they bear Dutch names, are practi- firmness of his character, and the grasp of

VOL. LII.-57.

political and economic questions which he has whatever, and the limited resources of their evinced, make him the most striking figure taal would, indeed, hardly permit them to among the colonial statesmen of Britain in do so. They are very prejudiced, and the this generation. He has been deemed by some strongest of their prejudices, next to that a less adroit parliamentarian than was the against Roman Catholics, or persons theolate Sir John Macdonald in Canada, but he is logically suspect, is against the English, possessed of a wider outlook and far more con- whom they call «red-necks, except when spicuous executive capacity. The ascendancy they use a more opprobrious term. So dearly which these gifts secured for him enabled him, do they love their roaming pastoral and huntwhile extending British influence up to and ing life that the discovery of gold-fields in beyond the Zambesi, at the same time to re- their territory caused them little pleasure. tain, down till the recent Transvaal troubles, They were content to sell the land to the which have gravely affected the situation, the speculators who flocked in, and never atconfidence of that Dutch, or Afrikander, popu- tempted to work the mines themselves, or lation which had least national sympathy with even to take shares in the mining companies. what is called an «imperial British policy. There are among them so few persons fitted

So much for Cape Colony. Now let us turn by education or taste for any kind of adminto the two Dutch republics. In the smaller istrative work that when the need was felt of these, the Orange Free State, the Boer ele- for such persons to fill the largely increased ment largely preponderates over the British. number of official posts, President Krueger, English is spoken in the towns, and by many being unwilling to take them from the Dutchfarmers; but South African Dutch is the speaking people of a British colony, resolved official language, and the speech of three to import his officials from Holland. These fourths of the whites. They are, on the whole, newly arrived Hollanders, whose number has less Anglicized than the colonial Boers, but become considerable, - I have heard it estithey have little or no anti-English senti- mated at fifteen hundred, -are now an imment; for the British government has never, portant factor. They are disliked and sussince the renunciation of its sovereignty in pected by the old Boers, partly as strangers, 1854, interfered with their independence, and partly, one is told, because their orthodoxy the citizens of English stock are just as much is doubted; but they exercise much influence attached to that independence as are the on the policy of the Boer government, and purest-blooded Boers. The commercial ties they are, not from prejudice, but from selfthat unite them to Cape Colony have been interest, fully as anti-English in sentiment as drawn closer by the construction of a railway the most old-fashioned Boer can be. through the state by the Cape government, Besides the old Boers and the new Holand by the conclusion of a customs union landers, there has grown up in the Transvaal with the Cape. Nevertheless, the sentiment during the last ten years a large population of kinship with the Boers in other parts of of strangers, the so-called Uitlanders, who Africa remains strong. In 1881 many of the have come in for the sake of working the Orange Free State men were arming to help mines or of supplying goods to those who their Transvaal brethren, and since then work them. Probably one half of the stranprojects of political union between the two gers come from Cape Colony and Natal, some republics have been more than once mooted. being of British, a smaller number of Dutch

It is in the Transvaal that the Dutch Af- origin. Of the rest the large majority are rican stock has remained least intermingled British, but there are also many Australians, with any foreign strain, preserving in their several thousand Germans, some Italians, crudest form all the peculiarities of its very and a few French and Scandinavians, as well peculiar character. The Boers live dispersed as Russian Jews. There are also Americans, on their huge farms over this huge territory. important not so much from their numbers There are only some sixty or seventy thousand as from their position; for most of the minof them in an area as big as Great Britain, ing engineers, with a good many of the foreseeing few strangers, and hearing little of men and skilled workmen, have brought their what goes on in the rest of the world. Many special knowledge and experience hither from are illiterate, and the rest read nothing but California or other parts of the Western the Bible. These conditions, coupled with States. It is impossible to estimate either natural force of character, might seem to be the total strength of this host of newcomfavorable conditions for the production of a ers or the respective numbers of its composimple and imaginative literature. But the nent national elements, for the influx has Boers have never produced any literature been rapid, and the component elements vary from month to month. You might as well acquire a surprising influence over them, and

a try to measure the volume of a South Afri- to exert over the Assembly a practical authorcan river, which rises and sinks according to ity far in excess of the very limited powers the rain-storms that in the wet season burst which the constitution of the republic peralong the courses of its various affluents. mits to the President. Last November the Cape railway was bring- The struggle between the Boers and the ing into the Witwatersrand gold-fields a thou- strangers, which has practically become a sand European immigrants every week. This struggle between the English and the Dutch mixed multitude, however, falls into two broad elements, now centers in the demand of the divisions, those who speak English, coming strangers to be admitted to the electoral from Britain, from Cape Colony, from Austra- franchise. Formerly electoral rights were lia, and from the United States, and those readily acquirable by an immigrant in the who speak some other European language. Transvaal, as they are to-day in the Orange The former are, of course, far more numer- Free State. In 1881 a residence of two years ous-probably four fifths of the total, which gave the vote. But when President Krueger at the end of last year must have reached or perceived that the influx of strangers would exceeded one hundred thousand, being there- alter the character of the electorate, and fore much larger than the whole number of ultimately transfer the balance of power to native Boers.

English-speaking citizens, he persuaded the The singular contrast of two populations Assembly to extend the period of residence which the Transvaal presents is probably required for citizenship, first to five, and then without precedent. On the one hand, a mul- to fifteen years, and thus practically to extitude of strangers, brought together from clude the whole of the new population which every corner of the earth by the desire of has come in since 1885. Thus electoral rights gain, and crowded into a small space, from are now confined to less than twenty-five which they have squeezed out the former in- thousand citizens, while probably double that habitants; on the other hand, a simple, pas- number of persons, of voting age and sex, toral people, untouched by modern commer- are living within the republic debarred from cial civilization and modern ideas, scattered those rights. It is easy to understand Mr. over a vast area, where they seek to live in Krueger's position. «These newcomers,» he the primitive fashion of their forefathers, argues, « are in all essentials strangers to but unable to avoid the impact of these our polity. They do not belong to our Dutch strangers, and driven to think how they can Reformed churches; they do not like our cusbest avoid being absorbed or overmastered by toms; they do not speak our tongue. They them. In the struggle which circumstances would use their votes, if votes were given have made inevitable, the chances might seem them, to turn out the present officials and to lie in favor of the newcomers, who have legislators, and would end by making the wealth, numbers, and intelligence on their country English, like Cape Colony or Natal. side. The Boers, however, are made of tough It was not for such a fate that we quitted and well-tempered metal. As in Montenegro, the homes of our fathers to go out into the every man between sixteen and sixty is wilderness and overcome the Zulus sixty a soldier-a soldier who, like the Montene- years ago; and against such a fate we will grin, makes up for the want of discipline by struggle to the end. On the other hand, the his hardy frame, his courage, and his relig- strangers complain that, though they form a ious devotion to the cause of his people. large majority of the population, own half They have also the advantage of a seasoned the land in the republic, and pay more than and skilful chief. President Krueger, who ninety per cent. of the taxes, they are denied came from Cape Colony as a boy of ten in the a share in the government of the country great trek of 1836, has, since he reached and in the application of its revenues, and manhood, been conspicuous in the military are obliged to submit to excessive and unfair adventures and civil troubles of the country. imposts, voted by a legislature some of whose To the natural shrewdness and tenacity of members are gravely suspected of corruption, his character, these years of active and and administered by officials many of whom changeful life have added a great experience are far from trustworthy. These were the of men and a perfect coolness in emergencies. motives which prompted the creation three He is keen, vigilant, astute, and, above all, years ago of an organization to obtain poresolute, and he represents so faithfully the litical reforms, and which led to the rising dominant feelings and the inbred habits of of the stranger population, or rather of a the Boer people that he has been able to part of the English-speaking portion of it,

at Johannesburg in December last-a rising district is at this moment the political center

;-a the declared aim of which was not the over- of the southern half of the continent; for it throw of the Transvaal Republic, but to com- is by far the wealthiest district, and it is the pel the Boer Assembly to extend the suffrage spot where population is becoming dense, and to the newcomers.

in which finance has established its seat. For Of that abortive rising, and of the expedi- the next fifty years at least it will apparently tion of the British South Africa Company's be the focus of industry and commerce for men, which came to help it, but was sur- the surrounding counties from Cape Town to rounded and forced to surrender to the Boer the Zambesi. It is the magnitude of the prize troops, this is not the place to speak, for that makes the present contest exciting, and those events have led to judicial proceed- draws the eyes of Europe to these few square ings now pending in England. The result has miles of barren upland, of which no one had so far been unfavorable to the demands of the heard fifteen years ago. Whatever be the strangers. President Krueger's hold on his political outcome of the contest, whether the citizens had been previously shaken by their strangers obtain votes or not, and whether or dislike to the officials he had brought from not the present form of government is mainHolland. The invasion, however, evoked all tained, there cannot be much doubt as to the the patriotism of the Boers, and made the ultimate result. Man for man, the Boers are President, who successfully withstood it, more not inferior to the English settlers either popular than ever. At the same time it stirred physically or in force of character. Probably the feelings of the Dutch in the Orange Free they are not less capable of developing, with State andeven in Cape Colony. Seeing theirown proper education and under stimulative conkinsfolk threatened by an expedition which ditions, a vigorous intellectual life. There is had started from British soil, they forgot for no better stock in the world than that Low the moment their own commercial grievances German stock to which they belong. But not against the Transvaal government (which only are they less numerous and less wealthy had built up a wall of tariffs against them), than the English-speaking strangers (many of and gave all their sympathy to the threat- the cleverest of whom are not English at all, ened republic. As the British home govern- but of Semitic origin), but they are unsuited ment had not only disavowed, but had even by their ideas and habits for the task of detried to stop, the expedition on its way, no veloping the material resources of their counresentment has been felt by the Cape Dutch try, and dealing with the financial and comagainst Britain. But the movement toward mercial problems which its rapid growth has a political fusion of Dutch and English in brought to the front. Without in the least the Colony has received a check, and the comparing them to the Mormons, who were tendency of the Orange Free State toward a far inferior to them in many respects, their closer union with its sister republic has been civilization resembles that of the Mormons in strengthened. Meanwhile, the grievances of being one which could maintain itself only in the new population in the Transvaal have not isolation. Now that the strenuous industrial been removed, and as the influx of strangers current of the modern world has reached it to the Witwatersrand mines will doubtless and begun to wash against it, its foundations continue, it is clear that something must be cannot long resist the sapping influences. The done to give a more or less complete satis- Transvaal, therefore, and all South Africa faction to their claims, and to prevent a re- with the Transvaal, seems destined in the currence of the troubles of last December future to belong to the English type of civand January. It is impossible, in our times, ilization, and to speak the English tongue. for a minority to continue to rule over a large But the Dutch tongue also will hold its ground and increasing unenfranchised majority of for many years to come, and Boer traits will people superior in intelligence and wealth, no doubt powerfully affect the South African however strong the original position of the character as it acquires, after a generation minority may have been, and whatever sym- or two, a settled and distinctive quality. The pathy their attachment to their own simple wish and hope of every one who knows the and primitive life may evoke.

country must be that the fusion, which will I have dwelt somewhat fully on the rela- (almost certainly) come at last, may come tions of the Boers to the English-speaking peaceably, and come not by a victory of the strangers in the Transvaal, because the ques- one element which could leave resentment in tions now at issue there involve the wider the breasts of the other, but by a process of issue between the English and Dutch races gradual assimilation similar to that which in South Africa. The Witwatersrand mining turned Englishmen and Scotchmen from enemies into friends, and is welding Flemings and land is still imperfectly ascertained, but that Walloons into one Belgian people.

of the Witwatersrand gold-field admits of no The reader may expect, before this article doubt, and even if, as some experts hold, that comes to an end, some brief expression of gold-field will be worked out within a century opinion as to the more distant future of South from now, it seems certain that for fifty years Africa, and particularly as to whether its in- at least it will continue to provide occupahabitants will become a great civilized nation, tion for a large mass of people, skilled as one of the dominant powers of the southern well as unskilled workers. In that region, hemisphere-a nation such as the Austra- therefore, a considerable growth of populalians are becoming in the East, and as the tion may be looked for, and it will be accomArgentine Republic might become in South panied by a less rapid rise in the number of America, were it in the hands of an orderly those who pursue agriculture, or otherwise and progressive race.

supply the wants of a mining class. Probably, That South Africa will ultimately be united therefore, a steady growth, as well of populainto one political body, probably in a feder- tion as of wealth, can be counted on for a cenative form, seems highly probable. Feder- tury to come, which is as far forward as any ative union would not only increase its polit- one can venture to look. But the growth may ical strength, but would also accelerate its not be very swift, and the white population, material development. Its growth in wealth which is now much less than one million, proband population will, however, depend chiefly ably about 750,000, in all South Africa, may, on its natural resources. Agricultural pro- twenty-five or thirty years hence, scarcely exgress can hardly be rapid while other coun- ceed two millions. For it must be remembered tries produce, without artificial aid, food- that the laboring population is colored and will stuffs which in this dry climate must, over remain colored. Speaking broadly, the counwide areas, be grown by means of irrigation. try will be a black man's, and not a white man's, The capabilities of South Africa for stock- country, and this is why the question of the raising are unquestionable; but stock-raising, future social and industrial relations of blacks even on a vast scale, does not imply any great and whites becomes of such paramount imincrease of population, or any great advance portance. There is no reason to apprehend in in the arts and refinements of life. It is there- South Africa, any more than in the Southern fore chiefly in respect of its mineral trea- States of America, a predominance of the insures that wealth will grow, and the country ferior race; but the future peace and prosperfill up rapidly with immigrants; for the afflux ity of the country will largely depend upon of settlers to the mines creates markets and the wisdom and temper with which the higher stimulates every branch of trade. The value race treats the backward one, and leads it onof the mines of Matabeleland and Mashona- ward and upward.

James Bryce.

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«I JOURNEYED SOUTH TO MEET THE SPRING.»