land to the Cape Colony, and to hand over the northern part of the Protectorate, including Khama's country, to the Chartered Company, which for practical purposes means three men: Mr. Rhodes, of Cape Town, Dr. Jamieson of Matabeleland, and Mr. Colenbrander, administrator of native affairs. Khama and his tribe do not wish to be transferred from the Imperial administration to the direct rule of the Chartered Company.

ONLY THE STATUS QUO.

There is no personal quarrel between Khama and Mr. Rhodes, but the administration of the Chartered Company in Matabeleland has been too recently established, and is yet too much tainted with the corollaries of the war, to commend itself to the Bamangwato. Besides, natives arc naturally conservative. Even Khama, who may be regarded as their most progressive chief, objects to radical reform in certain directions, and he shrinks from annexation. He has become accustomed to the present system. He does not ask for anything except that he should be let alone, and. that Dr. Jamieson and Mr. Colenbrander should have a longer time to prove their capacity to manage native tribes before they are allowed to interfere with the Bamangwato. Dr. Jamieson may be one of the best of men, as he is certainly one of the ablest, but his worst enemy will admit that he is not the type of man to commend himself to a chief like Khama, who is the bright and shining convert of the London Missionary Society. Mr. Colenbrander appears to be a gentleman whose ideas of natives are, to put it mildly, not founded on the Golden Rule so much invoked at Exeter Hall. The natives, in the eyes of Mr. Colenbrander's school, are not spoken of as men and brothers, but rather as matter in the wrong place, which it is devoutly hoped a beneficent Providence will cause to disappear. To put it plainly, Khama has no objection to Mr. Rhodes. He does distrust Dr. Jamieson and Mr. Colenbrander. Nor can any one look at facts even from this distance and doubt that he has a prima facie case for objecting to hand over his tribe to these gentlemen, who have at present their hands full, and of whose administration in Matabeleland the refugees at Palapye do not speak too favourably. It will be interesting to see how Mr. Chamberlain deals with the question of Khama. At the interview with Khama the Colonial Secretary listened attentively, and showed a desire to grasp the chief points in the case, but refrained from expressing any opinion on the subject.

66

WHY CANNOT YOU LET IT ALONE?"

No doubt Mr. Rhodes has powerful reasons, financial and political, for desiring to carry out his project. But considering all things, especially considering that the British public has its qualms of conscience, and would like dearly to put some salve upon the sore place by saving Khama from what he evidently dreads, it seems to me he would do well to remember the old adage, Safely but slow, they stumble who run fast. There is no hurry about the matter. Dr. Jamieson has his hands full at present. Khama has got on very well these last five years with his own people, and there is no visible reason why the status quo should not be prolonged for five

more

years. In the year 1900, if Dr. Jamieson has settled and governed Matabeleland to the satisfaction of every one concerned, the time will be ripe for taking over Khama's country. But meantime it would be a somewhat perilous step that would certainly provoke feelings of hostility at home which, of course, Mr. Rhodes could defy if he pleased, but which a prudent

Minister would avert if he could. A cynical bystander, looking at the position, would be disposed to say to the Dictator of South Africa, "You can do what you like with John Bull so long as you refrain from trampling on his corns. This black chief, Khama, is no doubt a very small corn on John Bull's little toe, but if you tread on it the consequences will not be small. Leave it alone. Dodge the corn if you want to get the shekels." I have no doubt the cynic would be right.

REASONS FOR PAUSE.

Khama represents many things which from old time have been very dear to the British public. He is a standing illustration-probably the best than can be produced-of the capacity of a native, chief to acquire Christianity and civilisation through missionary agency. Khama is much more in sympathy with Exeter Hall than is Mr. Rhodes. Khama possesses, indeed, almost every qualification to become an ideal legendary hero of the Missionary Society. I do not say that Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Jamieson do any such thing, but the gang of gambling speculators amidst whom they live and move and have their being, sneer at Exeter Hall and the missionary sentiment. Yet if it had not been for Exeter Hall and the work of the missionaries in South Africa, there would have been no South African Company and no northern extension, no, not for many a year yet. The missionaries have laboured, and Mr. Rhodes and the gold boomers have entered into their labours. A great many of our people have regarded this development with profound distrust and misgiving. This sentiment of distrust has just found vigorous expression in Olive Schreiner's manifesto-a trumpet blast which finds a widespread echo at home, outside the Kaffir Circus. Mr. Rhodes would hardly be acting with his usual wisdom if this floating dissatisfaction with what may be regarded as the stock-jobber's régime in South Africa were completely disregarded and Khama were thrust against his will. Khama will not fight, no matter what happens, and even if he did, he could be wiped out without difficulty. But Khama can appeal to a sentiment which, however much the new nabobs of De Beers and the Randt may despise it, is occasionally capable of blazing up and paralysing everything. The Achilles' heel of our South African empire is its financial basis. Even Mr. Rhodes" warmest supporters feel that there is too much cause given to those that maintain that, never since the world began, has there been a successful edifice of dominion which bore from its turret to its foundation stone the impress of Mammon. It is in South Africa as it was in Pandemonium

exists in the world. At this moment most of the men who back him, do so believing in their heart of hearts that he has no greater object than to drive Charters up to 10, and who for their sake, so long as that be attained, are quite ready to drive Khama and all his tribe to the devil.

But Mr. Rhodes knows that it is not the crowd who shout in the Kaffir Circus, nor the likes of them, who in the long run rule the affairs of the world. And however much he may regret what he will no doubt regard as the

unreasonable interference of the public at home in the execution of plans which they do not understand, he had better let Khama alone for a season. Khama is the one man in the whole of Africa whose case commands the sympathy of a large section of the British public; his claim is moderate, founded on justice and right. And if there be a God who rules among the affairs of men, it does not seem probable that He wishes Mr. Rhodes to sacrifice Khama to the exigencies of political or financial adventure.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN GOLD BOOM.

MR. S. F. VAN Oss, who has been out to South Africa, contributes two articles on the results of his investigations, one to the Nineteenth Century, and the other to the Investors' Review. His paper, which is entitled "The Gold Mining Madness in the City," has the first place in the Nineteenth Century. But, although he thinks it is madness, he admits that there is method in it. Mr. Van Oss puts into a brief compass the salient facts which will enable the general public to understand the cause for this extraordinary boom. In the Randt in the Transvaal there are fifty miles of gold reef of extraordinary richness:-

Dr. Schmeisser and Mr. Hamilton Smith concur in estimating the value of the gold in this district, down to a depth of about 1,200 feet, at somewhere between £300,000,000 and £350,000,000.

Besides this enormous mass of gold, which is regarded as almost within sight, there may be thousands of miles more which have not yet been prospected. Enough, however, is in sight to have called into existence an extraordinary industry. The traveller when approaching to the gold mining region is astonished at the developments of the gold mining works:

The works, which now directly employ 50,000 native miners and 8.00) Europeans, crush with their 2,700 stamps enough rock to produce over 200,000 ounces of gold a month; and the output of ore is so regular and reliable that there is literally no possibility of disappointment.

The regularity of the gold deposit in the Randt district differentiates it from all other gold-mining localities :A ton of ore yields on the average £2 68. 6d. in gold, to extract which costs only £1 103. 6d. Hence over one-third of the gold produced is profit.

The improved methods of extracting the gold have made many of the mines profitable which could not otherwise have been worked:

In the early days no more than 50 per cent. of the gold in the ore could be extracted; at present, with the aid of cyanide of potassium, between 80 and 85 per cent. is gained, and the proportion can before long be increased by another 10 per cent. Coupled with the effects of railway construction this improvement has had remarkable results. In the early days of the industry it did not pay to work ore with less than four ounces of gold to the ton; now five penny-weights suffice in many

cases.

These are the facts which underlie the enormous boom which has taken place in all South African shares. Mr. Van Oss, describing the wild gamble which has gone on in mining shares, says:—

Within little more than half a year a condition of timid enterprise has gradually degenerated into a craze for reckless speculation; a huge advance in values has taken place; the aggregate quotation of Witwatersrand shares alone has risen from £30,000,000 last autumn to some £150,000,000 now. A whole mushroom press has sprung up in the City, largely called forth by the fostering sun of company advertising on an unstinted scale; perhaps £25,000 a week is now spent on bringing new mining ventures to the notice of the public. The Stock Exchange is so active that "after hours" huge concourses of people have often obstructed traffic in Throgmorton Street to an extent which necessitated police intervention; the three fortnightly settlement days had to be augmented by one, because it was impossible to crowd all the work within the customary time; many firms of stockbrokers have been forced to double their staff, and to keep their offices open night and day at times.

While admitting that there is good justification for investment in the well known but pitifully managed

mines, he warns the investor that even if three million ounces are produced next year the total profit would not pay more than 2 per cent. on the present quoted value of the shares in the market. For some time past all the interests have been combined to force up the prices, but sooner or later it will come to be the interest of some of the speculators to play for a fall. Then he fears the market will break. His final warning is as follows:

These South African shares are largely artificial; though no doubt some shares are quoted at prices which represent their actual and intrinsic worth, the rise has gone so dangerously far now that even the augmented output of next year must fail to offer an adequate interest upon the capital invested. Further, I wish to emphasise the fact that the danger of collapse is especially great in this market, where strained conditions prevail, and where control rules, irresponsible, inscrutable, and all-powerful. Predictions are dangerous, and gloomy forecasts unpleasant to make. But unless this mad "boom" is checked, if it is still possible to check it, there will come a day of dénouement which must lead to a collapse so huge that the entire business world will feel the shock.

The article in the Investors' Review on "Gold in South Africa" is interesting, lucid, and apparently very carefully written. Mr. Van Oss has studied the country carefully on the spot, and, as might be expected from the fact that he is allowed to write in the Investors' Review, his judgment is anything but optimistic. I say nothing as to his estimate of the mineral wealth of the country; but I must quote his general conclusion, which is that, whether English, Boer, or Portuguese, all the Governments in South Africa appear to be rotten to the core. He says:

What has struck me most in South Africa, and hurt most as a journalist, is the widespread, or rather common corruption of the Press, especially in the Transvaal. All papers in that country, except, as far as I know, two, are paid by and subservient to some clique or other, be it the Rhodes' interest, or Kruger's, or Robinsons', or Ecksteins'; the two are the Johannesburg Critic, which has just started an offshoot in London, and the Transvaal Advertiser of Pretoria. In the Free State and the Cape and Natal it is much the same, and throughout South Africa newspapers are, like railways, the weapons in a gigantic struggle, full of cunning and intrigue. The next thing which deserves attention is the widespread corruption of the Boer Government. It has created a ruinous series of monopolies, ranging from spirits to dynamite, and a disgusting trafficking is continually going on for the Government's favours. Next come the rotten principles of Cape internal politics. These, I am glad to see, have just been taken in hand by Mrs. Olive Schreiner.

THE autumn number of the Cheltenham Ladies' College Magazine publishes a brief autobiographical sketch of Marshal MacDermott of Adelaide.

THE Italian translation of " If Christ Came to Chicago," which has just been completed by Agostino della Corte, will be published shortly. The first edition will consist of 2,000 copies. It is curious that the translator thinks the last chapter-which, as he says, is entirely religioushad better be left out in the translation for fear of bringing down upon the book the anathemas of the Roman authorities. At the same time from America I have received urgent representations pleading for the omission of the references to the Roman Catholic Church and the A.P.A. Association in other parts of the book; because, it is alleged, they are much too favourable to the Roman Church.

THE CIVILISING OF ENGLAND.

AS SEEN BY AN AMERICAN OBSERVER.

THE editor of Harper's Monthly Magazine has been visiting England this year, and in his notes from the Editor's Study he gives our American cousins quite a charming picture of the improvement which he has found in the Old Country. English people, he thinks, do not notice the change which is going on so much as the cursory visitor. He says:

To the infrequent visitor the changes in England in the last quarter of a century in this matter of civilisation, and, let me add, sophistication, are striking.

SIGNS OF PROGRESS.

He then proceeds to explain that when he says England is

becoming civilised I mean that she is increasing in the knowledge and the graces of life, in that which goes to pleasantness and refined enjoyment, as distinguished from coarseness and brutality, and I do not speak of the stalwart forces of civilisation which transformed the world in Cromwell's time. All the English writers have said that Englishmen take their pleasures sadly (in contrast with the Italians), and all English history, moral as well as civic, shows a strain of vulgar brutality in what they are pleased to call the enjoyment of life. What I wish to say is that England is changing in both these respects. There is a visible increase of gaiety, and there is less brutality in sports and social pleasures. Everybody, from the Cabinet Minister to the humblest clerk, from the rich merchant to the poorest workman, plays some sort of outdoor game, or indulges, in some weeks of the year, in a sporting holiday. I have a fancy, founded on some observations, that the English public generally know how to enjoy a holiday better than we do, and it is certain that the English of late years, notwithstanding the drawback of their climate, have increased their capacity for enjoying holidays, and with less boisterousness. A test of civilisation in this direction is a visit to Ascot or to Henley for the annual races and regattas. I do not speak now of the admirable order in both places, of the facilities for transporting and handling great crowds of people without confusion and without discomfort, or of the police regulations which give the maximum of freedom to all with the minimum of personal interference, but of the temper and behaviour of the pleasureseekers. Here is the reign of order, and yet the utmost individual freedom of playfulness. This is civilised amusement.

The appearance of London itself is a note in the increase of amenity and agreeableness in England. It is certainly a brighter and pleasanter city than it was twenty-five years ago. Window gardening has done as much as anything else to change the aspect of London. It has given the needed colour to the otherwise gloomy houses, and has transformed many of the streets into highways of beauty. London has also been cultivating its small parks and public flower gardens, and in almost every quarter the eye is pleased with greenery and bloom. The great amount, of life in the streets and the gay apparel, with the flowers in the windows and the bloom in arches and courts, make London in the summer the handsomest and most interesting city in the world.

THE CENTRE OF THE LIFE OF THE WORLD.

But although we are beautiful, beauty is one of the least of our attractions. The editor says:

I intended to speak in these paragraphs only of the increased beauty and pleasantness of London to the eye, and the order and discipline of its management, as evidences of its civilised condition. As a place of temporary sojourn its other attractions are quite as remarkable. It is really the

centre of the life of the world. It has in it, in the season more people and more things that one would like to see than any other locality on the globe. Everybody can be at home there, and whatever his tastes or his pursuits, everybody can find there the things that interest him most-collections, artistic and scientific, societies, galleries, amusements (though the theatres and operas are as good elsewhere, and in some places superior), fads, eccentricities, specimens of all races, all customs, all superstitions. With all its insular tone, London is hospitable to all the world.

In proof of this, he mentions with surprise the fact that patriotic Americans were allowed to celebrate the Fourth of July in London without any notice being taken of the fact. If he had had his eyes a little wider open, he would have found a mixed assemblage of Englishmen and Americans at Browning Hall celebrating the Fourth of July as a distinctively English festival. The editor's political observations are not very many, but there is one which is somewhat profound.

CONTENT AND INDEPENdence.

He went about the country a great deal during the General Election, and he was immensely struck by the absence of the feeling of equality, and the excellent results which followed therefrom :

The feeling of equality being absent, there is little social envy and bitterness. Envy and bitterness no doubt exist among the more enlightened, but I was struck with their absence in the people at large. There is not so much reverence for rank and privilege as formerly, but there is general content with condition, which there is not in the United States, and there is not in France, and there never can be where equality prevails. Whether content with condition be a good state or not, and however strong an ally it may be to the conservatism that resists progress, it undoubtedly works for social stability. I cannot conceive England ever plunged into a French Revolution. To an American, this subserviency of classes, of every class to the one socially above it, is the most noticeablephenomenon in England. And yet it is accompanied by a great deal of sturdy independence within the prescribed sphere. There is the universal consciousness in the breast of every Englishman that an Englishman is better than anybody else.

It is to be feared that the writing of this present. article is likely to confirm this conviction-born in every English breast-as to the superiority of the Englishman to every one else in the world.

In Praise of Russian Women.

IN the Humanitarian, the Countess Anna Kapriste,. writing on "The Position of Russian Women," says a great deal to their credit:

As compared with the women of other European countries, Russian women work more and weep less, they love and they hate in perhaps greater intensity, they marry with more deliberation, they abide by their choice more firmly, they exalt their mission of motherhood more highly, and on the bearing and rearing of their children they lavish all their energies of mind and body. To have strong and healthy children, sons strong as lion's whelps, and daughters flawless as doves, is the primary ambition of every normal Russian woman, and in the upper and educated classes of society she often chooses her husband (when she has the choice), not from passion, not from love, not for place or riches, or power, but with an eye to this purpose solely-" Will he make a good father of my children?" She speaks equally favourably as to the political and social position of her country women. She says:

In conclusion, I should like again to aver that the lot of a Russian woman is a happy one, whatever may be her class. Comparisons are odious, but if we compare the actual position, I should say that on the whole the position of Russian women was better than that of English women, and their influence, politically and socially, was greater.

HOW WE MAY LOSE INDIA;

OR, OUR REAL DANGER IN THE EAST. “PRIDE goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall," is the text from which Rev. William Bonnar, in the Contemporary Review for October, preaches a very impressive sermon under the title of " The English in India." I do not know who Mr. Bonnar is, but he writes as one having knowledge of his facts, and he speaks with authority, and not as one of the scribes who discuss what other men have seen without personal knowledge of their own. The gist of what Mr. Bonnar has to tell us we have heard more or less definitely from many other witnesses, although few have spoken so clearly and with such emphasis. What Mr. Bonnar says is that we shall lose India, if we do lose it, not because of any invasion from Russia or from any attack from without, but from the inherent and apparently ineradicable fault of our own people, namely, their unsufferable insolence and the infernal "side" which they put on in all their dealings with the natives.

THE CAUSE OF NATIVE DISCONTENT.

Mr. Bonnar says:

In spite of all that England has done in India since the time of the Mutiny, her rule there has been in one very essential point a signal failure. Peace there is, and progress too, but contentment there is not.

Nor has Mr. Bonnar any difficulty in laying his finger upon the cause why the Hindoo is discontented:

The root and source of this estrangement of the races is the cold reserve and unreasonable pride of the Englishman. He holds himself haughtily aloof from the native, or rudely drives him away; and all the exuberance of feeling which the native naturally shows to his lord and master has been chilled and repressed. During the past thirty years this alienation has widened and deepened very perceptibly, and just in proportion as England and India have been drawn closer together.

GROWING WORSE INSTEAD OF BETTER.

This is bad enough, but what is worse is that Mr. Bonnar does not see any hope of improvement. He

says:-

I do not think that there is any chance of a better state of feeling growing up, unless the English at home begin to take livelier and more active interest in all things Indian. The chances at present are quite the other way; the state of feeling now is less satisfactory than it was twenty or thirty years ago. Indeed, I speak only the sober truth when I say that the estrangement of the ruling and the ruled has become alarming, and is year by year being more and more forced upon the attention of observant and thoughtful men, both European and native.

That there should be estrangement is not surprising, if the statements which he made can be accepted as authentic. Fortunately two of his anecdotes admittedly refer to twenty or twenty-five years ago, but they are bad enough then. Here is one:

More than twenty years ago, I remember, all the cultivators of a certain village came more than a hundred miles to lay their grievance before the British Political Officer, and he kept them lying outside his gate for a week before he would allow them even to present their petition. A very deep and lasting impression of the Great Sarkar these poor villagers carried away with them! It is very unfortunate that the role of "high and mighty" is so often played by the Political Department in India.

ANGLO-INDIAN DEVILRY.

That is bad, but there is worse to follow:

I have known the Political Representative of the Indian Government in a native State go even as far as to order his chuprassies "to tie" up two ignorant villagers and give them

each "a dozen" for having passed him without duly acknowledging his presence. That occurred in 1871, and was, I gladly admit, an extreme case. Not so very long ago I heard a civil surgeon gaily tell at a mess-dinner how the other day he had felt constrained to teach a native somewhat forcibly his respectful duty to the "Ruling Race." The "nigger," as he put it, had his whiskers and beard tied up-as ali natives like to have them when travelling-when he met him on a country road. The doctor pulled him up and demanded to know why he had not undone his face-cloth when he saw a Sahib coming. Then suddenly remembering that he had a pair of forceps in his pocket, he dismounted, and taking the poor man's head under his powerful arm, extracted two of his teeth, saying, "Now tie up your mouth, my man. You have some excuse now." That is how some of us try to teach the poor natives to be loyal!

BOYCOTTING THE NATIVES.

Mr. Bonnar then caps this story by an anecdote told him by a friend in the Political service who had met one of the most enlightened and public spirited of the native princes at Poonah, and invited him to dine with him at the mess. He was promptly told that no black man could be allowed to dine at the English mess. But, said Mr. Bonnar's friend, he has been received by the Queen, he has dined with the Prince of Wales, and is quite a pet in English society. That may be, was the reply, but no black man shall dine in our mess. Mr. Bonnar says he is convinced:

that the meddling and dictatorial tone of our Foreign Office generally, and of our residents and political agents particularly, towards the native princes and nobles of India has robbed the Indian Government of all chance of becoming popular in native States. The English officer-civil and military-in India is not in touch, and is altogether out of sympathy, with the native.

THE ONE BRIGHT EXCEPTION.

There is one bright tint in this gloomy picture when Mr. Bonuar comes to speak of the astonishing impression produced on native opinion by the viceroyalty of Lord Ripon. He says:-

Here I cannot refrain from bearing testimony to the noble example set by the Marquis of Ripon while he was GovernorGeneral. By his affability and unfailing courtesy to natives of all ranks, and by his manifest sympathy with them in their higher aspirations, he so won the hearts of the people, that when he came to lay down his high office and return to this country, he received an ovation such as no Viceroy had ever dreamt of. The Calcutta correspondent of the London Times, who may be regarded as representative of Anglo-Indians wholly out of touch with the natives, summed up the general effect of that unprecedented display of enthusiastic loyalty in these pregnant words-"We are utterly astounded."

I remember about that time asking a native friend of mine a very near relative of one of the Princes of India, and whom the Government has more than once selected for special diplomatic service-what he thought of the Marquis of Ripon. Pausing for a few moments, he replied, "Well, my candid opinion is that if the Queen of England were to send a succession of such Viceroys to India, she might withdraw every red-coated soldier from the country, as there would be no need for them."

In contrast to the Rev. W. Bonnar's Cassandra-like warnings as to the unpopularity of our rule in India, take the following sentence with which Lord Brassey concludes his paper in the Nineteenth Century, on the closing of the Indian mints:

I can only add that, having recently had the opportunity of visiting India, and having been brought into contact with representatives of all classes and races, I have come away full of grateful feelings, full of admiration for the work achieved under British rule, and with a deep and abiding interest in everything that concerns the good government of India and the happiness of its vast and interesting population.