in connection with the Royal Colonial Institute.  Sir Frederick Young is a man who has been content to look after small things, and the result is this Institute has been worked up by the individual efforts of Colonists and others to its present flourishing condition.  I hope the Institute will long flourish, and never be absorbed by anything under more magnificent auspices—­in other words, that you will “paddle your own canoe.”  It is good sometimes to have a plain statement from a plain man.  South Africa suffers under a plague of experts who, after spending a few weeks there, tell us exactly what we ought to do; and we don’t like it.  I wish I could speak to you as a sort of amiable critic, but I have the misfortune to belong to that much-despised class the local politician, and I notice that, when anybody says anything about the Colonies in England, all unite in kicking the local politician.  In order not to sail under false colours, I state frankly that I belong to that class.  Of course, South Africa is creating a deal of interest at the present time.  People who come to fortunes usually do excite a great deal of interest among relations who may in times gone by have given them the cold shoulder.  There can be no doubt as to the material prosperity of South Africa at the present time, and still less doubt as to the future.  The gold fields of Witwatersrand are unique in the world.  This is not my own statement, but the statement of eminent mining engineers from America.  For thirty miles and more you have a continuous stretch of reef, which gives throughout a uniform yield per ton, and which has been proved to the depth of some hundred feet, and may—­there is every reason to believe—­go to unknown depths.  The reefs are now being worked in the most economical manner.  When proper appliances for mining are used, and when we get the stock-jobbers off our backs, I believe a career of prosperity will open of which few people dream.  From another point of view, to those who love the country and make their home there, there cannot but be a seamy side to the picture.  Great wealth brings other things in its train.  It has brought into South Africa a great spirit of gambling.  People neglect the honest industries of the country:  they leave their farm work, and rush off to make fortunes in a minute.  Everybody—­from the king to the beggar—­is gambling in gold shares.  Everybody neglects his business, and talks about nothing else.  I ask whether this is a wholesome state of society?  Is it not a state of society to which we may look with some degree of apprehension?  I believe myself that things will work round, but, undoubtedly, the state of affairs is serious.  After all, there is something which goes to build up a country besides material wealth, and I am not sure that gambling in gold shares is exactly the thing which is wanted.  Of course, there have been other countries where these vast increases of material wealth have occurred—­California and Australia—­but