dispute with the Free States could be first arranged. More than this I did not think it would do.1

Such being Mr. Froude's story of probabilities, let us see his opinion as to the desirability of success:

Perhaps my views of what was probable were coloured by my conviction of what was right. I did not then, and I do not now, think that we ought to establish a self-governed Dominion in South Africa. Selfgovernment in South Africa means the government of the natives by the European colonists, and that is not self-government. The parallel with New Zealand does not hold. The Maoris are few and are dying out; the Kaffirs and Zulus are in millions, and are increasing faster than the whites. The Europeans, I do not doubt, could control them, but they could, and would, control them only by measures which Great Britain would never allow to be carried out in the Queen's name. It is agreed that we must keep the garrison still at Cape Town to protect the naval station, and as long as there is a British regiment in South Africa it will be employed, if we insist on setting up a Dominion Parliament there, in supporting a system of government which for half a century we have repudiated and condemned.

If a line could be drawn across from Table Bay to False Bay, if the Cape Town peninsula was ours, and ours only, and the whole of the rest of the country was entirely independent of us, as I heartily wish it was, then I would leave South Africa to the South Africans, white or coloured, to shape out its own fortunes. The responsibility would then be theirs ; but as long as the government is carried on in the Queen's name the responsibility will cling to us, and therefore, for myself, I would wait to establish a South African Dominion till the law should know no distinction of colour, and the black races can be enfranchised, as the slaves have been enfranchised in the Southern States of the American Union."

Since Mr. Froude went upon his mission prepossessed with the belief that federation was neither probable nor desirable, it was not astonishing that he suspected everybody who so much as tolerated the idea of federation as intent on some sinister design. Mr. Molteno, as we know, was no Richelieu; still less was he a Talleyrand. A few minutes' conversation with him, however, convinced Mr. Froude that he harboured desperate schemes:

A light broke upon me. Mr. Molteno wished for confederation, but a confederation on his own terms. He wished us to have the odium and trouble of forcing the Free States back under the British flag, while he himself affected to regret it. When the work was done, he would then offer to take them in under the Constitution. A Dominion formed in this way would simply be a Dutch State reconstituted, filled with a determined and just resentment against the English Government. South Africa on such terms would not be worth our possessing. If this was Mr. Molteno's purpose, it was neither fair nor tolerable. I hinted my suspicions to him. He did not admit that I was right, but he did not deny it. He simply 2 Ibid., p. 67.

1 'Two Lectures on South Africa,' p. 73.

said that he had made up his mind to have nothing to do with the Conference, and that the question could not be reopened. I asked him if he would lay what I had said before the Parliament. He said there was no occasion for it.1

In the whole history of negotiations it will be difficult to find a parallel for such a choice as Mr. Froude's. Here was a task of extreme delicacy, the success of which depended upon the recommendation of a certain scheme to a responsible Ministry in the first glow of its enjoyment of responsibility. The emissary entrusted with its achievement did not believe that the scheme was either possible or politic, and had a profound distrust of responsible government. 'I do not blame them' (the Cape Ministers); I blame the system. I believe responsible government to be thoroughly unsuited to the circumstances of South Africa. They had thought so themselves; but having got it, they naturally insisted upon their rights."2 Send a brewer to advocate Prohibition, send a Bishop to preach Disestablishment, send a President of the Cobden Club to inculcate the blessings of Fair Trade, but do not commission distinguished men of letters to advocate a policy which they but partially understand, and with which they fundamentally disagree.

1 Two Lectures on South Africa,' p. 75.

2 Ibid., p. 86.

CHAPTER IV

SIR BARTLE FRERE

BETWEEN the departure of Mr. Froude and the arrival of Sir Bartle Frere, as successor to Sir Henry Barkly, the negotiations with regard to confederation were suspended. It is true that a Conference of an informal character was held at the Colonial Office on October 26, 1876. It consisted of a deputation of gentlemen interested in South African affairs of the one part, and the Colonial Secretary of the other. As, however, the President of the Orange Free State and Mr. Molteno, the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, considered themselves bound by the resolutions of their respective Parliaments not to take part in any formal Conference, the proceedings derive their sole importance from the opinions expressed in course of them. An address in favour of confederation was presented to Lord Carnarvon, signed by the leading merchants connected with South Africa, a deputation whose interests, said Mr. Paterson, who spoke for it, were only to be expressed by the large figure of millions.'

Further, Theophilus Shepstone had already been appointed with very large powers to deal with the question of the Transvaal, and it is interesting and important to note what Mr. Paterson thought of the fact:

If there is to be a taking over of the Transvaal, the just susceptibility of the people there should be fairly and fully consulted, and if they are to be put under one supreme legislature in South Africa by their own consent, there should still be left to them the fullest government in the administration of local affairs.'

Lord Carnarvon's reply fairly stated the views of the Imperial Government with regard to the Transvaal. It is important that these views should be placed on record in the face of the very persistent misrepresentations which were made between the first annexation and the retrocession. Those who opposed the original absorption of the Republic, and those who advocated the restoration of its independence, insisted that Lord Carnarvon's policy, as executed by Theophilus Shepstone, was based upon a complete misapprehension of the feelings and wishes of the Dutch inhabitants. Nothing was so common in the post-retrocessional debates in Parliament than the imputation to Lord Carnarvon of a belief that annexation was favoured by a majority of the Transvaalers. There is no evidence whatever of such a misapprehension, nor was it ever encouraged by Shepstone. Mr. Rider Haggard, in a work published in 1882 and republished in part in 1897, says distinctly1 that if those who made these statements

had taken the trouble to refer to Sir Theophilus Shepstone's despatches, they would have found that the ground on which the Transvaal was annexed was, not because the majority of the inhabitants wished for it, but because the State was drifting into anarchy, was bankrupt, and was about to be destroyed by native tribes. They would further have found that Sir Theophilus Shepstone never represented that the majority of the Boers were in favour of annexation. What he did say was that most thinking men in the country saw no other way out of the difficulty; but what proportion of the Boers can be called thinking men? He also said... that petitions signed by 2,500 people, representing every class of the community, out of a total adult male population of 8,000, had been presented to the Government of the Republic, setting forth its difficulties and dangers, and praying it to treat with me for their amelioration or removal.' He also stated, and with perfect truth, that many more would have signed had it not been for the terrorism that was exercised, and that all the towns and villages in the country desired the change, which was a patent fact.

Mr. Haggard, it will be remembered, was on Sir Theophilus Shepstone's staff. Months, however, before annexation was effected Lord Carnarvon, in replying2 to the Paterson deputation, showed that he was under no illusion as to Boer opinion:

A good deal has been said with regard to the present position of the Transvaal Republic. Statements have reached me, and, I have no doubt, 2 Blue-book, C. 1732.

14 The Last Boer War,' p. 58.

others in this room, of a disposition on the part of many in the Transvaal to join our English colonists in some closer bond of connection. It has, indeed, been so said by one of the speakers to-day, and I am quite aware that within the Transvaal there are many persons who are very favourable to such a union. Probably the vast majority of the English residents there would eagerly welcome some such change. I believe that a large proportion of the Dutch population also would recognise in such a union a greater security for life and property and for all those elements of sound government which every young community must naturally desire to obtain. No doubt there are inducements to the Dutch populations of the Transvaal on the one hand to enter into closer bonds of alliance with the Dutch in Cape Colony and in Natal, just as there must be a readiness on the part of the Dutch population in our English colonies to enter into closer union with the Dutch population of the Transvaal; and therefore I see no reason against the idea that such a union may be practicable and desirable, and may be entered into with the hearty concurrence of all, or all the principal parties concerned and interested in such a change. At the same time, I am sure you will feel that no precipitate action should be taken by Her Majesty's Government in this matter, and I have great confidence in the wisdom and evenly-balanced mind of Sir Theophilus Shepstone. I have also great confidence in the measures he will take, and in the support he will receive from all the constituted authorities, both from the Imperial Legislature and the Governments of Natal and the Cape. At such a moment as the present, union, as it has been truly said, is strength, and not only among the European communities of South Africa, but union as between them and the Imperial Government at home. It is not a time for dissensions; we ought all to set aside all differences, and to feel that there is one common interest in South Africa which both the Imperial Government and the Governments of the colonies can best carry out by joint and hearty action.

And he added, with regard to the Bill which he was submitting to Parliament, this solemn and specific state

ment:

I have explained1 that it will be an entirely permissive measure, and that it will furnish an outline, leaving it to local knowledge and experience to fill in the details as far as possible. I will only add one other remark in reference to an observation which has been made in this room, and it is this that whilst I desire to see the Central Government and Parliament of the South African Confederation as strong as possible, and free from any of those checks and thwarting influence to which it might be exposed from rival and co-ordinate and antagonistic bodies-whilst I desire to see this on the one hand, I also desire to see preserved as far as possible, in the several States which may become members of the Confederation, their individuality of character and their old traditions and customs, and to give them as large a share as possible of power and control in the administration and in the expenditure of money. I do not mean to say that there may not be difficulties in adjusting the rival claims of two such bodies as a central body and a provincial body. That, no doubt, was one of the great difficulties with which we had to deal in Canada years ago. But, taking all the circumstances and all the conditions into consideration, I think myself that the conditions are more favourable in South Africa than they were in Canada. And I can see

1 'The Last Boer War,' p. 14.