Bills, who will be free to discuss any measure affecting Colonial Policy in general, or the affairs of any Colony, in particular, who will be entitled to forward their conclusions, requests, or opinions to Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, and who will constitute a most effective means for ascertaining the current of opinion in any particular Colony for the time being.

     “The Houses of Convocation might be referred to as an example of an
     extra Parliamentary Body of recognised position in the
     deliberations of the State.

“And, to revert to South Africa, the sympathies, and probably loyal adhesion of all the intelligent classes of every nationality, would be elicited by nothing more than by the express personal interest of the Sovereign, and Her family in the Cape Colony.  The occasion of the visit of Prince Alfred, when a mere child, elicited unbounded demonstrations of enthusiastic loyalty to the Crown, and those from Dutch and English alike.  The name ‘Alfred,’ in honour of His Royal Highness, is to be everywhere met with in connection with all sorts of public bodies, Volunteer Corps, and other Institutions.

“Personal influence goes for more than all the defined policies of successive administrations, or excellent theories of Government.  A Prince is of more weight than the best of official Governors, and it is not likely that in medieval ages, or even at later periods, such an appanage of the Crown, as we desire South Africa to become, would be unvisited by either the Sovereign, or someone of the Sovereign’s family.  The visit of their Royal Highnesses Prince Albert Victor, and Prince George of Wales was limited to a brief sojourn at Cape Town, and did not extend to the Colony in general.

“The necessity for the employment, in the interests of the Empire, to use the phrase most practical,—­uncouth, however, it may seem,—­of our Royal Princes appears to be a very decided and certain means to the end we have in view, namely, the binding together, by means of sympathetic enthusiasm, the Colonies to the Mother Country, but most particularly the creating of a healthy common accord between South Africa and Great Britain.

“Let any Colony or Dependency feel assured that it is regarded as worthy of attention by those nearest to the Crown, and any sense of isolation, any suspicion that the people, or their country are regarded with any measure of contemptuous indifference must forthwith vanish.  Sympathy, encouragement, personal contact, seem to be essential elements to the solution of what is admittedly a problem.”

I regard this letter of my well informed correspondent as a most interesting and truthful expression of wide-spread opinion, among the intelligent classes of Her Majesty’s loyal subjects in South Africa.