[54]. A great change has again taken place. The Rose Innes has been incorporated with the Central, and the shares of the latter company in the spring of 1886 were selling at about £160, though nine or ten months previously they were down as low as £20, and no demand even at that.
[55]. The soundness of the investment of money in our Diamond Mining scrip under the diminished cost of working, owing to the extension of the railway, the increased care taken in the searching department, and consequently increased yield of diamonds, has been lately much taken advantage of by European capitalists, and at the present time I have never, for years, known the Fields in a more prosperous condition.
[56]. A favorite Boer expression when abandoning an expedition.
[57]. Lieut. Governor Southey in a long dispatch dated Kimberley, April 11th, 1874, in reply to a dispatch from Sir Henry Barkly of March 11th, the same year, and which was written after Langalibalele had attempted to escape from Natal, said in clause
“15. The alterations and changes made by the Cape government, and with which I am desired to co-operate, are made avowedly at the instance of the Natal government; and you have furnished me with an extract from one of that government’s communications upon the subject. I should have been glad to have been permitted to peruse the whole of the letter, as I have reason to believe that they attribute their late troubles, in a large degree, to the facility with which natives can obtain guns in this province, instead of, as in my opinion they should do, attributing them to their own mismanagement and mistaken policy.
“16. It is not true that (as the colonial secretary of Natal erroneously alleges) arms and ammunition at the diamond fields pass more readily from the diggers to the natives than specie; the natives receive their wages invariably in specie, they are paid weekly, and the usual rate of pay is ten shillings for the week. Those who obtain guns purchase them as a rule just before leaving for their homes, and only after producing the permits to purchase which the law requires. Comparatively speaking, but few Natal or Basuto natives come here; the great bulk of our native laborers come from the interior northward of the South African Republic, and considerably beyond the legitimate boundaries of that state, and their guns are not acquired for war purposes, but for purposes connected with legitimate and beneficial trade.
“17. I cannot concur in the opinion of the lieutenant governor of Natal that the acquisition of arms by the natives of the interior, who come here and work in the mines, is fraught with danger to the peace of South Africa, and I am unable to see why we should cherish a friendly feeling with the neighboring republics any more than with the various native tribes. I should consider it very undesirable to purchase the friendly feeling of those republics at the expense of injustice or oppression toward her Majesty’s own subjects or unfriendly acts toward the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. I may here state that the native tribes of the interior have ever evinced the greatest possible friendliness toward us, and English travelers, English traders and English missionaries have invariably been received and treated with all respect by them, while on the other hand the governments of the republics have on several occasions been charged with unfriendliness toward us, in official documents addressed to them by her Majesty’s representatives in South Africa. I believe we shall best exhibit our friendliness toward the republics by setting them an example of justice and toleration, and that we should act an unfriendly part if we pandered to their prejudices or supported them in oppressing the native population.”
[58]. I have even seen the rebels drilling in the market square with their rifles, at four in the afternoon, ordered to “Right about face,” “Present arms,” so that their rifles would point straight at the government offices.
[59]. I recollect at the time calling upon Mr. Froude, who was a guest at Government House.
[60]. Who at once ran away to escape the punishment he deserved.