Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 1).djvu/75

 the one undeviating path towards material and intellectual progress. I see them habituating their shoulders to the yoke of daily labour,—as we have all habituated ours in Europe, and I do not doubt the happiness of the result. Nor do I care at present to go into the question of a far distant future. I will not say but that in coming ages a Kafir may make as good a Prime Minister as Lord Beaconsfield. But he cannot do so now,—nor in this age,—nor for many ages to come. It will be sufficient for us if we can make up our minds that at least for the next hundred years we shall not choose to be ruled by him. But if so, seeing how greatly preponderating is his number, how are we to deal with him when he shall have come to understand the meaning of his electoral privileges, but shall not yet have reached that intellectual equality with the white man which the more ardent of his friends anticipate for him? Such are the perils and such the political quagmire among which the Southern States of the Union are now floundering. In arranging for the future government of South Africa, whether with, or without, a Confederation, we should I think be on the alert to guard against similar perils and a similar quagmire there.

I have now spoken of the Queen's subjects in the Cape Colony. Then come on my list as given above the inhabitants of native districts which are subject to the Cape Colony, either by conquest or by annexation in accordance with their own wishes. These are so various and scattered that I can hardly hope to interest my reader in the tribes individually. The Basutos are probably the most promi