[16] "Austral Africa, Ruling it or Losing it," p. 157.
[17] When the Transvaal was annexed, in 1877, the public debt of that country amounted to £301,727. "Under British rule this debt was liquidated to the extent of £150,000, but the total was brought up by a Parliamentary grant, a loan from the Standard Bank, and sundries to £390,404, which represented the public debt of the Transvaal on the 31st December, 1880. This was further increased by monies advanced by the Standard Bank and English Exchequer during the war, and till the 8th August, 1881, (during which time the country yielded no revenue,) to £457,393. To this must be added an estimated sum of £200,000 for compensation charges, pension allowances, &c., and a further sum of £383,000, the cost of the successful expedition against Secocoemi, that of the unsuccessful one being left out of account, bringing up the total public debt to over a million, of which about £800,000 was owing to this country. This sum the Commissioners (Sir Evelyn Wood dissenting) reduced by a stroke of the pen to £265,000, thus entirely remitting an approximate sum of £500,000 or £600,000. To the sum of £265,000 still owing must be added say another £150,000 for sums lately advanced to pay the compensation claims, bringing up the actual amount owing to England to about a quarter of a million."—Report of Assistant Secretary to the British Agent for Native Affairs. (Blue Book 3917, 46.)
[18] "Austral Africa." Mackenzie.
VI.
THE CAREER AND RECALL OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. UNFORTUNATE EFFECT IN SOUTH AFRICA OF PARTY SPIRIT IN POLITICS AT HOME. DEATH OF SIR BARTLE FRERE. THE GREAT PRINCIPLES OF BRITISH GOVERNMENT AND LAW. HOPE FOR SOUTH AFRICA IF THESE ARE MAINTAINED AND OBSERVED. WORDS OF MR. GLADSTONE ON THE COLONIZING SPIRIT OF ENGLISHMEN.
The case of Sir Bartle Frere illustrates forcibly the inexpediency of allowing our party differences at home to sow the seeds of discord in a distant Colony, and the apparent injustices to which such action may give rise.
While in England Sir Bartle Frere was being censured and vilified, in South Africa an overwhelming majority of the colonists, of whatever race or origin, were declaring, in unmistakable terms, that he had gained their warmest approbation and admiration. Town after town and village after village poured in addresses and resolutions in different forms, agreeing in enthusiastic commendation of him as the one man who had grasped the many threads of the South African tangle, and was handling them so as to promise a solution in accordance with the interests of all the many and various races which inhabited it.
"In our opinion," one of these resolutions (from Cradock) says, "his Excellency, Sir Bartle Frere, is one of the best Governors, if not the best Governor, this Colony has ever had, and the disasters which have taken place since he has held office, are not due to any fault of his, but to a shameful mismanagement of public affairs before he came to the Colony, and the state of chaos and utter confusion in which he had the misfortune to find everything on his arrival; and we are therefore of opinion that the thanks of every loyal colonist are due to his Excellency for the herculean efforts he has since made under the most trying circumstances to South Africa...."[19]
Another, from Kimberley says:—"It has been a source of much pain to us that your Excellency's policy and proceedings should have been so misunderstood and misrepresented.... The time, we hope, is not far distant when the wisdom of your Excellency's native policy and action will be as fully recognized and appreciated by the whole British nation as it is by the colonists of South Africa."[20]