Coolie labour must, therefore, be provided either from India or from China: let it be abundant, and hampered with no regulation which is not for the protection of the labourer. By restricting the supply of labour to our colonies, obstacles are placed in the way of their development which prevent them so successfully competing with the Slave Labour States of America and Cuba as they otherwise might do. On the other hand, by supplying abundance of labour, our colonies will produce supplies for European markets in so great abundance, and at such a great reduction in cost, that the working men of our own country will be able to obtain in plenty many articles which are now looked upon almost as luxuries, although absolutely necessaries to overworked frames; while, at the same time, the produce of slave labour, being so much dearer, will find no market, and the producing article, namely, slave labour, must entirely cease.
With reference to the climate of Natal, besides what has here been stated, it is only necessary, to add the testimony of my late lamented friend, Dr. Stranger, who, after surviving the unfortunate “Niger Expedition” of 1841, died at Natal, while filling the important post of Surveyor General of that Colony. The worthy doctor’s report states:—
“The climate of Natal is very healthy, but, I think, more salubrious at some distance from the coast. There appears to be scarcely any disease incidental to the country. Dysentery is not frequent; ophthalmia occurs occasionally, and is, perhaps, the only disease of the colony; it is, however, not often of a severe character.
“The rains commence with violent thunderstorms about the month of September, and continue till about April, when they terminate with thunder. During the rainy season, which is also the summer, the average daily temperature is about 76°, but the evenings are generally cooled by a S.E. breeze. The thermometer rarely rises above 80°. The winter temperature varies from 50° to 60°; frosts are frequent in the higher parts of the district, and at the Mooi River, in June, I have seen the thermometer stand at 27° at 7 A.M. Cold nights are generally succeeded by warm days. Rain rarely falls in the interior between or during the months of May and August. On the coast the seasons are not so well defined, as showers occur throughout the year. Long droughts are almost unknown.”
To Natal has been accorded by the Imperial government the great boon of Self-government; and while taking leave of this Colony, before we proceed to the northward, and view the state of other settlements which are not under the ameliorating influence of British rule, it may not be inappropriate to quote a few words from an article in the Edinburgh Review, of April, 1850, headed, “Shall we retain our Colonies.” The words referred to are:—
“The affection of the colonists it is easy to preserve, or to recover, where, through misjudgment or misunderstanding, it has been shaken or impaired. By ruling them with forbearance, steadiness, and justice; by leading them forward in the path of freedom with an encouraging but cautious hand; by bestowing upon them the fullest powers of Self-government, wherever the influence of British blood is large enough to warrant such a course; in a word, by following out the line of policy announced and defended by Lord John Russel, in his speech on the introduction of a Bill for the government of the Australian colonies, in February of the last year, we may secure the existence and rivet the cohesion of a dominion blest with the wisest, soberest, most beneficial form of liberty which the world has yet enjoyed, and spreading to distant lands and future ages the highest, most prolific, and most expansive development of civilization which Providence has ever granted to humanity.”
CHAPTER VIII.
Port St. Lucia—Zulu Country—Panda—Delagoa Bay—Its Unhealthiness; Causes Examined—Lourenço Marques—Dutch Fort—Tembe and Iniack—British Territory—Fecundity of Boer Females—Products—Transvaal Republic—Mineral Wealth—Future of the Country.
After leaving the limits of the Colony of Natal, in proceeding to the northward, the first port which attracts attention is that of Port St. Lucia, in latitude 28° 26′ S., and longitude 32° 26′ E.