THE NEWEST NATION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 171, 28 October 1910, Page 5

THE NEWEST NATION.

UNITED SOUTH AFRICA. INAUGURATION OF AUTONOMY. GREAT PREPARATIONS. By Cable —Press Association —Copyright. Capetown, October "20. General Botha is receiving visitors at Jlr. Rhodes' late residence, Groote Schuur, where he" has taken up his residence, in accordance with 3lr. Rhodes' will. Dr. Jameson will arrive to-morrow and will occupy the neighboring estate of Westbrook. The Government guests will occupy Xewlands' house, formerly the Governor's summer residence. The Canadian representative, Mr. Lemieus, Postmaster-General, and Sir Richard Solomon, late Agent-General for the Transvaal, arrived from England to-day. The Medic, with Messrs Fisher and Fowlds aboard, has just arrived at Durban. The national pageant promises to be a conspicuous success. Boers, Basutos, and bushmen from remote districts are arriving to participate as performers, and are attracting much attention. THE COMMONWEALTH REPRESENTATIVE. „ Durban, October 26.

Mr. Fisher arrived and was welcomed by the Chief Magistrate, on behalf of the Government, the Major, and a deputation from the Labor Party. Renter reports that in an interview Mr. Fisher said that he was pleased to come to South Africa on such an important occasion. His only duty was to convey a message of goodwill and the congratulations of the Commonwealth to the South African Union. South Africa had benefited by the experience and mistakes made by Australia when federation was established. Mr. Fisher said he wished first to get the South African views, then perhaps it might be possible to arrange some projects to the mutual b°nefit of the two dominions. Discussing the defence of Australia, he said that the country was isolated and was at the back door of the East, therefore it was necessarv that Australians should be able entirely, to defend themselves. Hence they were building up an Australian navy.

A HOUSE THAT IS FAMOUS IN HISTORY. Groote Schuur is a name that has n familiar sound when South African affairs are mentioned, and the man in tlu street retains a hazy idea that it is somehow associated with Cecil Rhodes and somehow with South African union. That it is a key to .1 romantic chapter in history he does not guess. Let L. E. Neame, a Johannesburg writer with s» fine touch, explain: Just nine-and-thirty years ago thert stepped ashore at Capetown a big, loose-limbed young man, who for his health's sake had been sent out from England to farm in the purer, drier aii of South Africa. And while he gathered his first impressions of the Cape of Good Hope there played upon a farm ia the far distant north a sturdy little lad, eight years old. The young stranger entered upon the race for gold; yet he was not as the other seekers after wealth. Though with them, he was not of them. He was a dreamer of strange dreams; he carried an Empire in his mind. Slowly his visions took shape. And from the south he began to build, to push forward a great enterprise, scheming and fighting against the Power in the north, where another man, also a dreamer oi dreams, planned a similar Empire. Victory fell to him of the south, and when the empire-builder went to his long last rest he left a beautiful and historic house as a dwelling-place for the first leader of a United South Africa. It was a gift worthy of the man who from the southernmost point of a continent had looked out across the great empty spaces to north —ever north. The house stands to-day on the shores of South Africa. And its first occupant wall be the little lad who played upon a farm in the north, in the land which allied itself with the rival empire-builder. For the young man was Cecil Rhodes. The little bov was Louis Botha.

There is much that is romantic in the history of the British Empire, but nothing more romantic than this. The lad who grew up on an Orange Free State farm and became a member of President Kruger's Legislature, and led the forces of the north against the might of a nation which came to support the work of the empire-builder and the dreamer of the south, is now the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa under the British flag, and is entitled to occupy the beautiful house Rhodes bequeathed to tbe land he loved. Less thap nine years ago he was defying our armies. To-day he governs .a dominion of our Empire. Surely the English must be mad—or inspired! For, consider the history and associations of this house—Groote Schuur. Far back in the story of South Africa it stood for everything Dutch, for everything anti-British. Two and a half centuries ago the site was a favorite spot with the servants of the Dutch East Indip Company, which had just established a little settlement at Table Bay. It was here than Jan Van Riebeck planted wheat and oats and barley, the Dutch bui't grain stores, as the name GrooteSchuur (big granary) records to this hour. It was from the magazines at Grnote Sc-huur that Simon Van der Stel sent away the first consignment of grain ever exported from South Africa the twentv-five muids despatched to India in I€B4. ' Dutch rule came to an end. The great empire faded awav. British officials governed at the C'ape of Good Hope. In the course of time there was built upon the site of the old Dutch granaries a house named The Priory, from which was obtained one of the finest views the world can reveal. At last Rhodes, the dreamer, bought the estate, and changed the name back to the old one of Groote Schuur. and built and remodelled and planned, in l -r large way. until lie had produced a ply •which seemed to breathe spirit of all that was best in South \frica. Groote Schuur wns made typical the union of British and Dutch, and Iwiode= fiVed it with the treasn-es of South Africa, and willed that it should be

occupied by the first leader of the Union. Oft upon the old peak seat, high up on the hillside, looking out over tht Cape Flats and a portion of Table Bay, Rhodes sat and dreamed of his empire towards the north, and of the future when South Africa should be one: . . . Ay, one land, From Lion's Head to Line. And Groote Schuur is in itself an inspiration. The gift of Rhodes to the Union of South Africa carries with it a legacy of patriotic schemes and vast policies. It is still a place of dreams. The statesman who occupies it cannot but be influenced and uplifted and strengthened by the spirit of intense love of South Africa and of the Empire which is in the very atmosphere of the place.