On our arrival at Stellenbosch we were driven, under the guidance of the Mayor, to the University, where a mixed staff of professors, English and Dutch, are doing excellent work in education. We were received by a guard of honour, furnished by the students' Volunteer Corps. Having inspected the University buildings, we drove out to an old Dutch farm, under a burning sun, and through a country in which the foliage of the temperate and the tropical zones was closely intermingled.
The farm we visited comprises an extensive range of buildings, with an excellent dwelling-house, roomy stables, and the stores, filled with butts of wine, which are characteristic of the district. The buildings form a large quadrangle, surrounding a plot of grass shaded by noble trees. The situation of the farm is very striking. It stands in a deep valley, green, fertile, and well watered, but completely hemmed in by mountains of volcanic formation some 4,000 feet in height, beautiful in form, but entirely devoid of vegetation. Want of rain and the phylloxera are constant anxieties at the Cape. We observed that the field labourers were invariably men of colour. Their earnings do not exceed one shilling per day.
Cape politics have been a fertile source of trouble and anxiety to the British Government at home. With the necessarily imperfect knowledge of local circumstances, it is impossible, from London, to deal in a satisfactory manner with the relations between the Government of a distant colony and neighbours so little known as the Boers, and savages so rude as the Kaffirs and Zulus. Our errors of the past will not be repeated, if only we resolve firmly not to fetter the discretion of the local Governments, which, in pursuance of a wise policy, we have called into existence.
St. Helena
The visit of President Kruger, of the Transvaal, to President Brand, of the Free State, was a prominent topic at the time of our visit. It had led to the delivery of a speech by Mr. Kruger, in which he had declared the determination of the Boers to preserve their complete independence. In the Cape Colony people are more interested in the establishment of railway communication with the new gold-fields within the borders of the Transvaal than in the question of political union. As yet a certain reluctance is manifested by the Boers to establish railway communication with the Cape. An English company has made a railway from Delagoa Bay to the Transvaal frontier, and the line will shortly be extended to Pretoria. In the meanwhile the people of the Cape Colony are desirous of extending their system of railways, already 1,483 miles in length, into the interior. Considerable discoveries of gold have recently been made within the limits of the Transvaal, but close to the border, and all the workers at the mines are Englishmen from the Cape Colony. There is no reason to doubt that permission to establish railway communication with this newly discovered gold-mining district will be ultimately granted.
Among the Boers of the Transvaal a large number are friendly to the English. Once connected with the Cape by railway, and by a Customs union, which has been much under discussion, the Cape Colony and the Transvaal will be for all practical purposes of trade united. A divided administration of government in a country of such wide extent is an unmixed advantage.
It was particularly gratifying to hear from Mr. Hofmeyr, the head of the Dutch party in the Cape Parliament, and a most able representative of the Colony in the late Colonial Conference, how entirely satisfied his people are to live under British rule as now conducted. The Dutch colonists at the Cape have no personal relations with Holland. They look back upon their former connection as an interesting historical association; but the protection which England affords against the occupation of the Cape by some other foreign power is a practical boon, and one greatly valued. There is a party at the Cape which regards with disfavour the dependence of the present Premier, Sir Gordon Sprigg, on the Dutch vote, or, as it is called, the Africander Bond. From another point of view we may hail with satisfaction the success which an Englishman has achieved in winning the confidence of the Dutch. While conducting the government to their satisfaction, he is thoroughly loyal to his own nationality. Baron Hübner speaks in discouraging tones of our position at the Cape. A much more cheerful impression was conveyed by the present able Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson, and by other eminent men whom I had an opportunity of consulting.
Judging from such indications as came under our personal notice, the native races, so far from being a source of weakness, are a great strength to the colony. The Indians in North America, the Maoris in New Zealand, the aborigines of Australia, have disappeared or dwindled away before the white man. The Zulus and Kaffirs have proved themselves capable of adopting and promoting civilisation. They show in numerous instances a high appreciation of the blessings of education. They are ready to labour on the farms, on the railways, and in the mines. They are content to live under the rule of a superior race.