The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1903. THE SOUTH AFRICAN SETTLEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 69, 21 March 1903, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1903. THE SOUTH AFRICAN SETTLEMENT.

Far tin causa that lacks assistants For tba wrong that needs resistant* For the future in tba distance A»d the food that we can do. i — —

It is easy to forgive Mr Chamberlain for the somewhat exultant tone in which he has* referred to the results of his South African tour. The Colonial Secretary has done all that great physical energy and strenuous will could do to make himself master of the situation. He has interviewed 500 representatives of all parties and shades of opinion, he he received 15'J deputations, and he has travelled thousands of niilas to soe and bear for himself what is being done and what i.s still needed in South Africa.

Everywhere he bus been received with enthusiasm, everywhere his intelligent appreciation of facts and his irkar incisive speech have extorted confidence even from the Boer generals and the Afrikander Bond. It is not strange that Mr Chamberlain should be inclined to take a sanguine view of the future of South Africa; and already he can point to many weighty proofs of the success that has attended the policy directed by himself and executed by Lord Milner. Already 100.000 people have "been replaced upon the land. Already the estimated surplus for the Orange Free State and the Transvaal far exceeds the charges on the "war loans. Overborne by his eloquence, the capitalists of the Rand have compromised the labour question, and have offered £30,000,000 towards the expenses of the war; the Bond leaders have pledged themselves to exercise their influence hi the great work of racial reconciliation; and Mr Chamberlain looks forward to a time not far dis 7 tant when South Africa shall receive

complete autonomy as a united • and loyal province of the British Empire.

It is impossible to deny that Mr Chamberlain's successful progress gives food hope for the., future of ' South African Imperialism. Yet we cannot refrain from turning to the darker side of the picture. In spite of all that has

been gained, there are still serious dangers threatening the unity and the loyalty oi the South African colonies. The Transvaal is in the grip -of the mineowners, and though they have offered £30,000,000 towards the war debt, they could well afford three times that sum from their enormous gains. This esti-

mate is based on the latest calculation of the known extent of the Rand goldbearing strata. In the "New South Africa" of Mr Bleloch, one of Uie foremost mining authorities in South Africa, it is stated that the Rand will certainly yield over 2000 million pounds worth in gold, a sum more than three times as large as the British national debt. Under the circumstances the Rand capi-

talists may congratulate themselves on their bargain with Mr Chamberlain. For an indefinite time the mining interest will control the Transvaal, and already there a.re signs that the mine-owners

will raise the Labour question to the rank of a serious diplomatic problem. Mr Chamberlain has said Hint he was

never approached with a request for the importation of Chinese, but the report, of the Intercolonial Conference just cabled from Bloemfontein shows that a

determined effort is to be. made to secure indentured Oriental labour. The predominance of the mine-owners and the Labour problem are difficulties which

may for many yearn to come imperil the peace and prosperity of the Transvaal. At1 the same time a hopeful augury may be drawn from the resolution passed by the Bloemfonl.Mii Conference to acknowledge the claims of Imperialism by offering England and her colonies the benefits of a preferential Cus-

Toms tariff

In Cape Colony evwi tho Tiioar cheerful of optimists would be compelled to admit that there n.re serious urounds for apprehension. The loyalists, both DirUh and Britujh, bave still only too much cause to complain that "loyalty doe.s not pay in South Africa." Far more attention, and infinitely more money, have been spent upon the Boers and the rebels than upon tlio men who have lost their all in fighting for England. Moreover, the Spring Ministry, which can Keep its place only by truckling in (lie most servile fashion to the Bond, lias treated the loyalists with the grossest injustice. Hut the political position in flic Cape Colony is altogether anomalous and unparalleled. No one pretends that Sir Gordon Sprigg and his followers command the confidence of the people. Depending absolutely upon the votes of men who liave openly avowed their disloyalty, the Sprigs Ministry has become merely a tool in the hands of the Bond. Ft has been asserted —notably by Ihe Johannesburg correspondent of I.lie "Daily Mail" —that "Mr Chamberlain was •'shepherded" by the capitalists throughcm t South Africa, and though this may be on exaggeration, there i* some reason for believing thai he did not succeed in wetting the point of view of either Ihe Cape loyalists or the progressives. Lord Alilncr's opinion that the Constitution should be suspended remains the unchanged conviction of the man who has better opportunities than anyone else for predicting the course of political events in South Africa, Dr. Jameson, now President of the South African Leagne, has just publicly declared that the aim of the Bond is still to attain practical control of South African alFairs while leaving to England a merely nominal supremacy. Now that the rebels in Natal are amnested and will soon be refranchised there is imminent danger that if the same course is followed in the Cape Colony South Africa may relapse into absolute subjection to the Bondists, who. in spite of their avowals of loyalty to Mr Chamberlain, have given "no proof of any ebange of policy in the Cape Legislature. Many perils still menace the cause of Imperialism in South Africa, and we have yet to learn if this last great a& of clemency may not, like erery other concession to the Boers and the Bond, be construed as weakness. Meantime, there is some consolation to be found in the fact that in maintaining the policy of Lord Milner Mr Chamberlain supports the one man who is feared by the Bond and trusted by the loyalists "and progressives, whose cause he lias made his own.