hibition against differential duties still held good with respect to imports from foreign countries or from Great Britain, and the levying or remitting of any duty, contrary to or at variance with any existing Imperial Treaty, was expressly forbidden. Of course, the provisions of a measure, under which the Mother country was expressly classed as a foreign country, lend themselves to easy criticism; at the same time it may be plausibly contended that the complaisance of British statesmen, in yielding to colonial claims, helped on the spirit of Imperial unity far more than would have any premature assertion of formal union. It is clear, I think, that in the period between 1850 and 1880 the relations between England and the Australian Colonies were very similar to those between a father and sons on the verge of manhood, and who has not known the irreparable mischief which may not be caused by some exercise of authority, in itself not blameable, at that trying time?

However ill-suited responsible government may have been to Jamaica. the circumstances of Jamaica, it is probable that things would have gone as before with the usual amount of grumbling and friction, had not the outbreak of 1865, with its attendant panic, reconciled the most obstinate of the planter Oligarchy to the abolition of the Constitution. In itself the outbreak has perhaps received more notice than it deserved. The furious controversy which raged round the reputation of Governor Eyre, wherein were engaged, on the one side or the other, many of the leaders of English thought, caused the details of the affair to be eagerly canvassed throughout England. For our present purposes it is sufficient to note the findings of the Royal Commission, consisting of an experienced military Colonial Governor and two distinguished lawyers, who found1 that there had been an organised conspiracy, but that martial law was continued for a longer period than was at all needful. Fear creates cruelty, and if his past record acquitted Governor Eyre of cowardice, he perhaps showed himself too compliant to the fears of others. However this may have been, the main importance of the 1 Parl. Pap., 1866.

insurrection lay in the fact that because of it, the ancient Constitution was at last, to the great advantage of all par1866. ties, overthrown. The Colonial Legislature signed its own death-warrant. After two hundred years of so-called popular government, Jamaica was transformed into a Crown Colony, with a single nominated Legislative Chamber. In 1884, however, the principle of popular representation was again tentatively reintroduced.

CHAPTER III

Sir P.

past

IT has been already seen how Sir G. Grey's policy with re- Cape gard to South Africa was repudiated by the Home Govern- Colony. ment, and how his reinstatement in the position of Governor Wodehad been on the condition that that policy should be dropped. house on His almost immediate transference to New Zealand released policy. him from a position of great difficulty: while the wisdom of his views was attested by the despatches of his successor, Sir P. Wodehouse. Again we hear of agitation in the Orange Free State "with a view to the reannexation in some June 1863. shape of that territory to the British possessions in this quarter."1 Sir P. Wodehouse writes 2 in 1866, "You are Jan. 13. aware that in 1854 Her Majesty's Government, strongly impressed with the difficulties it had had to contend with in administering the affairs of the Orange River Territory, not sufficiently appreciating its possible value, and alarmed at the prospect of having to maintain an expensive military force, resolved" on abandonment. "This step gave great dissatisfaction here at the time; and it may fairly be questioned if the British Government, acting under the pressure of immediate evil, gave sufficient thought to the embarrassment that might arise out of setting up in immediate proximity to ourselves and the native tribes, a small independent state, peopled by the nearest kinsmen of the Cape colonists, possessing their warmest sympathies, excessively weak in itself, and yet almost certain to cause us much inconvenience whenever it should please to come to an issue with the natives around." In Mr Cardwell's opinion, however, the March 9, extension of British rule in Africa was "a matter too serious 1866. in its bearings to be entertained without some overruling necessity such as has not yet arisen."

Forces, however, were at work, against which the timidity

1868.

of British statesmen proved powerless. The very astute Basuto- Moshesh had for some time seen that his best chance of land. safety lay under the ample wing of the British Empire. He was, in fact, able to force the hands of England by rendering his relations with the Orange Free State a standing menace to the paramount Power. So intolerable did the situation become that Sir P. Wodehouse, with the fear of the disapproval of the Home Government before his eyes, found himself forced to take measures, the outcome of which would be the annexation to the Empire of Basutoland. To any complaints by the Orange Free State of the breach thereby made in the 1854 Convention, the reply was that the Republic itself had broken the Convention, through closing for months its law-courts, and thus denying redress to colonial creditors. At bottom, however, there was the conviction that it was the original Convention, with which June 1, the fault lay. "It does not now admit of any question that the policy which led to . . . that Convention was a most mistaken one; that under an undue estimate of the difficulties attending the immediate government of that country, Her Majesty's Government resolved to free themselves from the responsibility, while possessing but a very imperfect perception of the more serious and more permanent evils, which they would then bring into existence. Under the influence of this error they forced the people, .. in opposition to the decided wishes of the majority and the most intelligent, to set up an independent government on the most democratic principles. . . . The results have been quite what might have been expected." To the Duke of Buckingham belongs the credit of having first among English Colonial Secretaries showed a real inclination to yield to the logic of the man on the spot. Writing in Nov. 23. November 1868,2 he considered that the "necessity" spoken of in Mr Cardwell's despatch "may not be far off." "It appears to me possible that the interests of our Colonies. and the maintenance of peace in the countries around them may render it politic to take into consideration any overtures 1 Parl. Pap., 1868-9.

2 Ibid.

which may be made, to bring these States (ie., the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic) in some form or other under British authority." With respect to Basutoland the policy of annexation was sanctioned, although the particular method of carrying out the annexation advised by Wodehouse was not approved.1

The final arrangement 2 with regard to the Basutos, under which a part of Basutoland was incorporated in the Orange Free State, was far from satisfying the philanthropic party in England. They would not recognise that the Orange Free State could fairly claim some compensation in territory for having been restrained just in the moment of victory. In Sir P. Wodehouse's words, "They" (i.e., the Aborigines April 18, Society) "speak as if they were wholly unaware of the 1870. fixed determination for years past of the British Government and people to treat with the coldest indifference the struggles of other peoples, not absolutely and immediately affecting themselves. They seem to think that I, as the Governor of a Dutch population, with a Legislature largely pervaded by the Dutch element, acting under the certainty that I should not be supported in so doing by Her Majesty's Government, ought to have pushed matters to an extremity with a Dutch Republic, inhabited by the nearest kinsmen of the Cape Colonists, ought to have incurred an immediate risk of great disasters, and sown the seeds of bitter and lasting animosity."3 Sir P. Wodehouse had already proclaimed Basutoland British territory and for the present it was left to be administered by the High Commissioner. He, however, had no separate funds with which to enforce his authority, and the employment of the Cape frontier police in Basutoland caused some friction with the Cape Legislature; many members considering that their Dutch kinsfolk had been hardly dealt with by England on the question of the annexation. Sir P. Wodehouse was succeeded by Sir H. Barkly at the close of 1870, and in the

The Home authorities were in favour of annexing Basutoland to Natal. Moshesh, however, refused to agree to this.

2 Treaty of Aliwal North, Feb. 12, 1869.

3 Parl. Pap., 1870.