A Winter Tour in South Africa eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 98 pages of information about A Winter Tour in South Africa.

A Winter Tour in South Africa eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 98 pages of information about A Winter Tour in South Africa.
and experienced observers of events in this country, that the large population, mainly British, which has been attracted to the Gold Fields of the Transvaal, is unlikely to endure much longer the systematic misgovernment and suppression, to which they are subjected by men of avowedly anti-English sympathies, and pledged to a policy directed to check British progress by all means.
“What form the suggested revolt in the Transvaal may take is not likely to be revealed, until some overt step towards its execution has been taken.  We would all desire that the end in view should be secured by peaceful means, and that the Transvaal should become a part and parcel of British territory.
“To effect a revival of loyalty to England in the Cape Colony, and to influence the destinies of other States in the direction of union with England, should surely be the hope and endeavour of all true Englishmen, whether in this Colony, or elsewhere.
“And the end in view is not an easy one to attain in a country, where the majority of Europeans consider that they, or their compatriots, inflicted disgrace, and a permanent loss of influence upon the Imperial Troops on the one hand, and the Imperial British Government on the other.
“The application of any remedy seems to lie more with the Sovereign personally, or Her Majesty’s immediate advisers in England, than with any Governor, and High Commissioner, or Cabinet of Cape Ministers.
“For qua Governor, the Queen’s Representative at the Cape, is necessarily checked, or controlled by the Ministry of the day, his Constitutional advisers, and the presence in the Cape Parliament of a dominant force of the essentially non-English, or Africander party, must necessarily also have a very material influence upon Ministers, who depend upon a majority of votes for the retention of their office.
“In short, the problem in the Cape Colony is one, which happily does not exist in either of the other great dependencies of the Crown; it is altogether peculiar to South Africa, of which, after all, England acquired possession by conquest, and, having acquired it, has never completely won the adhesion of the Dutch inhabitants, who resent such acts of Government as the abolition of slavery, the introduction of the English principle of equality before the law, and, above all, an unsettled vacillating policy, which last has the worst possible effect upon all the nationalities, European, as well as native, throughout South Africa.
“The present attitude of even British South Africa, is one, not of expectancy, but of slight hope, mingled with distrust, and after such conspicuous events as the dismemberment of Zululand, the retrocession of the Transvaal, in addition to the ineffective efforts towards confederation, he would be a bold man who, as an Englishman, would dare assert either that his country protected
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A Winter Tour in South Africa from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.