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Herbert and Griqualand West were, moreover, each pursuing independent policies, all more or less rigorous, towards the natives, while the Dutch Boers of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic were exceeding even the harshness of the English colonists in their treatment of their native neighbours. Carnarvon determined to protect and pacify the natives. He reversed the sentence passed by the Natal government on a native chieftain named Langalibalele, whose lands lay on the borders of Natal, and who had been charged with conspiring against the colony. He recalled the lieutenant-governor of Natal, Sir Benjamin Pine, and sent out Sir Garnet (now Lord) Wolseley as temporary governor to report upon the native difficulty and questions of defence (25 Feb. 1875). On 4 May 1875 he forwarded a despatch to Sir Henry Barkly, governor of Cape Colony, directing that representatives of the three English settlements and of the two independent Dutch republics should meet together to determine collectively and on an uniformly just basis their future relations to the natives. He also suggested that the conditions of a South African confederation, on the lines of his Canadian scheme, should be discussed; named the persons who might in his opinion best represent each constituent state; and asked his intimate friend Mr. J. A. Froude, who was visiting South Africa, to explain to the colonists his own personal views. The assembly of Cape Colony hotly resented Carnarvon's proposals as an unwarranted interference with their right to independent government. Carnarvon expostulated (4 July); but, soon perceiving that popular feeling in South Africa supported the colonial ministry, withdrew his scheme (22 Oct. 1875) and substituted a suggestion that a South African conference should meet in the following year in London. That plan was very partially pursued. In 1876 the president of the Orange Free State and Mr. Molteno, premier of Cape Colony, arrived in London; but the proposals for a confederation made little progress. The personal interviews with Carnarvon resulted, however, in a settlement of the claims preferred by both the Orange Free State and Cape Colony to the possession of Griqualand West. It was arranged that that territory should be united to Cape Colony, and that the Orange Free State should abandon its pretensions in consideration of the payment of 90,000l. Meanwhile reports of disturbances in the Transvaal, caused not only by the Dutch Boers' quarrels with the natives but by their oppression of English settlers, seemed to Carnarvon to justify English interference. He sent Sir Theophilus Shepstone there in September 1876 to compose internal differences, and gave him for the purpose large discretionary powers. Soon afterwards he sent out Sir Bartle Frere as governor of the Cape and high commissioner for the settlement of native affairs in South Africa.

Carnarvon did not despair of meeting the accumulating difficulties by the adoption of his original scheme of a South African confederation. In April 1877 he introduced into the House of Lords a bill ‘for the union under one government of such of the South African colonies or states as may agree thereto, and for the government of such union.’ He followed throughout the lines of his Canada act, but the measure was merely permissive, ‘a bill’ (he himself described it) ‘of outline and principle.’ Its passage through the House of Commons in July and August was rendered notable by the obstruction on the part of a few Irish members of parliament, led by Mr. Parnell and Mr. Joseph Biggar, who then first appeared in the distinct role of irreconcilable enemies to the ordinary methods of parliamentary procedure. Mr. Parnell repeatedly charged Carnarvon with indifference to colonial sentiment. Before, moreover, the bill had proceeded far, news arrived that Shepstone, doubtful of remedying otherwise the anarchy prevailing in the Transvaal, had on 12 April proclaimed the annexation of that country to the British empire. Carnarvon gave this step his warm approval. The opposition, under Mr. Gladstone's leadership, bitterly denounced it in parliament and the country. Carnarvon asserted that the annexation was accepted by the Dutch with enthusiasm (31 July 1877). Later in the year, however, the Boers sent to London a deputation requesting a reversal of the proclamation, but Carnarvon stood firm. In December 1880, after Carnarvon had retired from office, the Boers rose in arms against their English governors. A disastrous war followed, and in April 1881, when Mr. Gladstone was again in power, the independence of the Transvaal Republic was re-established. Meanwhile, in 1877, after Sir Bartle Frere had promptly suppressed a Kaffir outbreak, Carnarvon enthusiastically defended Frere's energetic action in preventing what might (he said) have proved a serious trouble.

South Africa was still suffering from the results of these disturbances and from the prospects of further difficulties, when the policy of his colleagues in Eastern Europe led Carnarvon to retire from the government. On the outbreak of the war between Russia and Turkey in 1877 he had urged that England should adhere to a policy of strict