advocate the rights of a portion of our people,—­the meanest and most despised of our fellow citizens,—­when those rights had been destroyed by an Act of Parliament which was a distinct violation of the Constitution, and having been driven, almost like a ship-wrecked creature to cling, with the helpless crew around me, during those years to this strong rock of principle, and having found it to be political and social salvation in a time of need, I cannot refrain, now in my old age, from embracing every opportunity I may have of warning my fellow countrymen of the danger there is in departing from these principles.

My hope for the future of South Africa, granting its continuance as a portion of our Colonial Empire, is in the resurrection of these great principles from this present tribulation, and their recognition by our rulers, politicians, editors, writers, and people at large as the expression of essential Justice and Morality.

France possesses, equally with ourselves, a record of these principles in its famous “Declaration of the Rights of Man,” born also in a period of great national tribulation.  That document is in principle identical with our own great Charter.  But France has only possessed it a little more than a century, whereas our own Charter dates back many centuries; hence the character of our people has been in a great measure formed upon its principles, and they have been made sensitive to any grave or continued violation of them.  In France, earnest and sometimes almost despairing appeals are now made to these fundamental principles expressed in their own great Charter by a minority of men who continue to see straight and clearly through the clouds of contending factions in the midst of which they live; but for a large portion of the nation they are a dead letter, even if they have ever been intelligently understood.

How far has South Africa been governed on these principles?  I boldly affirm that on the whole, since the beginning of the last century, it is these principles of British Government and Law, so far as they have been enforced, which have saved that colony from anarchy and confusion, and its native populations from bondage or annihilation.  But they have not been sufficiently strongly enforced.  They have not been brought to bear upon those Englishmen, traders, speculators, company-makers, and others whose interests may have been in opposition to these principles.

A Swiss missionary who has lived a great part of his life in South Africa, writes to me:—­“The whole of South Africa is to blame in its treatment of the natives.  Take the British merchant, the Boer and Dutch official, the German colonist, the French and Swiss trader,—­there is no difference.  The general feeling among these is against the coloured race being educated and evangelized....  Only what can and must be said is this, that the Laws of the English Colonies are just; those of the Boer States are the negation of every right, civil and religious,