A British Johannesburg.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 351, 27 February 1902, Page 4

A British Johannesburg.

SIR A. MILNER. Tor my own part I think that the making of a great municipality is enough to attract any one’s ambition, but in this case the government of the municipality involves questions of the highest politics. For a great .Johannesburg—great not only in the number but in the character of its inhabitants, i:i (heir intelligence, their cultivation, their public spirit—means a British Transvaal. A British Transvaal will turn the scale in favor of a British South Africa, and a British South Afl.ca may go a long way to consolidate Hie British Empire. (Loud cheers). That, and all that, is involved in the details,, sometimes dull details, of ycur municipal life, in your watersupply, your tramways, your parks, your schools, in your attaining for i (uirselves the full equipment of the highest standard of civilised lile. If f might be permitted to give my adi ice to the people of Johannesburg, I

should say to them : “ Pitch your ideal sufficiently high from the outset; go for a big thing. (Cheers.) Don't lie content with shabby makeshifts or temporary expedients ; don’t be content with anything less than making t' is a model city—a city built for permanence, fully equipped with all the essentials for health, comfort, and of cii'ture, not only for the few but for the great bulk of its inhabitants.” (Cheers.) But now, gentlemen, I don’t want you to think that because 1 live in Johannesburg myself, and see what can he made of it, I therefore wish nggrandise this place at the expense of other places, of Pretoria for instance, or of the great growing towns of_ the coast colonies, of Kbodesia, or of Natal. My duty is to all South Africa. (Hear, hear.) I shall never cease to preach against particularism, to exhort not to any local but to a South African patriotism. But this is precisely a case in which the growth of one does not damage, but on the contrary advantages, all the others. That is the beauty of the situation. The prosperity which flows from here enriches all South Africa, and not its towns only but the country —that great, neglected, underpopulated under-cultivated country, the interests of which must always lie at the heart of any decent Government, and which certainly requires moro direct assistance to make the most of itself than is required by a place like this with its immense original resources.