THE SOCIETY" INCUBUS.

279 in this direction. Colonel Lanyon had heard of the obstructiveness of the "clique," and knew, almost from the outset, that they would try to tie his hands with "formulas," and hinder his efforts for good by the dead-weight of routine. In his seventh month, however, he broke through the meshes that were gathered round him, saying, "Since the day I came here you have been telling me what I cannot do; now what I want to know is, not how things cannot be done, but how they are to be done, and done at once."

So he began, in spite of his surroundings, to do something. Hence the existing political content of the Diamond Fields. But if English colonists are misrepresented to the Colonial Office by its underlings, how much worse and more uncontrolled is the misrepresentation continually taking place about subject populations and neighbouring races! Every day the Government of England is asked by its satraps to endorse some high-handed aggression, approve of some seizure of new territory, or crush some, till then, independent, people; and the proconsul supports his application by quoting the views of his clique, his official surroundings, and the "society" they affect.

What can a Colonial Minister do? He is himself utterly unacquainted with facts, except as they reach him through the offices below him. The result is, injustice is perpetrated, and a multitude of people are rendered miserable, because there is no court of appeal against the decision of the Colonial Minister.

Of course I will be told there is a court of appeal-Parliament, and, perhaps through the press, "the public." This is an illusion; and that it is an illusion is to be proved by referring to the recent annexation of the Transvaal. A question was raised about the matter before the "House; and no doubt the people of England are perfectly satisfied that, this form having been gone through, justice is, or ought to be, satisfied; but it is not so. Parliament was not in an inquiring humour, and was perfectly happy to hear from an official source a not very detailed statement of the reasons that impelled the Colonial Office to sanction the annexation. But Parliament did not inquire, by the personal examination of witnesses, into the truth of the charges made

against the Dutch, nor into the validity of the reasons put forth for the annexation. The House was satisfied, on hearing—although it was not at all true—that a majority of the inhabitants of the country had expressed their desire to become her Majesty's subjects, that the annexation was unsought and unavoidable. Above all things, it was an accomplished fact, and therefore merited approval. So the House decided that it was done, and well done, and the matter ended.

Now, let any Englishman consider what evidence the House had before it on this subject at the moment it came to its momentous decision. It had the same evidence that the Colonial Minister had, and not one particle more. In fact it had the representations, tales, and reasonings of the Annexationists only, supported by the statements of the chief actor in the work.

This is a most unfortunate state of affairs, and quite apart from the question of the right or wrong of the Transvaal annexation, my contention is, that there should have been in existence an English tribunal, a parliamentary commission, or an imperial and colonial council, to which witnesses on oath could have been brought, petitions presented, and appeals made by those who considered themselves wronged in the matter. But the Transvaal had no appeal, except from the Minister in Downing Street to the Minister in his place in the House; and his decision was everywhere the same, "that he had acted for the best,"-as no doubt he still believes he did.

The Transvaal protested against the annexation, and sent delegates to England to pray at the foot of the Throne for justice. They had again to appeal to the Colonial Office, and of course the result was that their petition was rejected. Now what is a State situated like the Transvaal to do? To whom must colonists resort? The system that leaves them no appeal except to the Colonial Office is clearly wrong. Therefore it is that some kind of council which would have power to hear and determine important questions between England and her dependencies should be constituted. If the complainants are the vast majority, and yet find their protests rejected, on the grounds that they

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are, as stated by the Annexationists, only a small minority, what are they to do? Petitions are nowadays not looked upon as very reliable expositions of real public opinion. If the complainants appeal anew to Parliament, they are told that the whole question was settled last year; that the matter has been heard and decided upon, and cannot now be reopened. What then can they do? They know thoroughly well that their case has never been heard; that only the case of the Colonial Office has been put before Parliament and the country; and that it was adjudicated on hurriedly, without the hearing of witnesses, and in a spirit of utter indifference to their views. They appeal to the press of England: it is closed against them by the utter insignificance of their affairs in the eyes of the caterers for the reading public.

Is this to go on for ever? Is a department to ruin a colonial empire simply because the colonists have no court of appeal against officialism and official misrepresentation? I hope not. The meanest wretch that pilfers a pockethandkerchief has, in free England, the right to claim that he shall be tried by his peers before he is sentenced to an imprisonment however short. What injustice is it, then, to say to a free people, "You are accused of being weak, incompetent to manage your own affairs, and addicted to slavery. Your accuser is the Colonial Office. It has judged you; it has executed judgment on you. From that judg ment there is no appeal. Evidence and argument are unnecessary, and will be useless. You have now only to consider how matters may be so arranged that you may regain a portion of the liberties we have deprived you of"?

It must be borne in mind that this sentence may result in the spread of discontent and the consequent subjection of a people to the heavy expenses that must be incurred in the suppression of that discontent, as well as to criminal prosecutions, destruction of families, and perhaps the death or disgrace of individuals, who may seek, in despair, or ignorance of their own weakness, to resist the dreadful judgment of national annihilation. No more is asked for these people than that they may have a fair, open, and public trial, and that as their defence has not been heard before sentence was

executed, that now at least they may be permitted to ask for a revision of their case before lapse of time and the progress of years and the sanctity of custom and long continuance to what they consider an iniquitous spoliation.

It is here not unreasonable to put before the English reader a deliberate statement of fact and opinion, made by an impartial judge in the conflict between the colonial authorities and the Republics, put on record some years ago in such a way (when looked on by the light of recent events) as almost to partake of the spirit and nature of prophecy :

"Between the Republics and the Imperial Government a quarrel had arisen in consequence of the British occupation of the lately discovered Diamond Fields. The dispute had interested me from the contradictory statements which I had heard about it. I wished to learn the history of the transaction from disinterested parties on the spot, and to learn, especially, how far the annexation had been approved by colonial opinion.

"I am told that if Natal is irritated it may petition to relinquish the English connection and join the Free States. I cannot but think that it would have been a wise policy, when the Free States were thrown off, to have attached Natal to them.

"If we had said openly, when the diamond mines were discovered, that circumstances were altered, and that it was no longer convenient to leave these provinces in their present state, they would have grumbled, but they would have borne it.

"We have heaped charges of foul dealing on the unhappy Free State Governments. We have sent menacing intimations to both of them, as if we were deliberately making or finding excuses to suppress them.

"It has become painfully clear to me that the English Government has been misled, by a set of border land-jobbers, into doing an unjust thing, and it is now equally difficult to persist and to draw back.

"The English Government, in taking up Waterboer's cause, have distinctly broken a treaty which they had renewed but one year before in a very solemn manner; and the Colonial Office, it is painfully evident to me, have been duped by a most ingenious conspiracy."

What a state of things these extracts from Mr Froude's 'Diary' indicate as existing in an English colony, landjobbers using England and her flag to make conspiracy successful! I do not need to add anything to this painful picture; but if England ever hears the case of the Transvaal, another nefarious scheme will have been laid bare.

I shall now turn to the question of fact. Was the Colonial Office deceived? Of this there can be little doubt. Sir Theophilus Shepstone himself was deceived on a matter

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within his own especial knowledge. He had repeatedly advised against the Transvaal claim to portion of the Utrecht district, and was convinced, as he says, that that claim was defective. He, on native affairs, was the chief adviser not only of the Natal Government, but of the Imperial Government; and on all such questions his advice and opinion were looked upon as of the greatest weight. Yet we find him on January 2, 1878,1 confessing that he had all along been miserably wrong, and been misinformed as to the facts in dispute. He, in fact, recants the errors of twenty years in as many lines of a despatch.

Again, we find that whereas his annexation proclamation, 12th April 1878, speaks of Republican weakness and loss of territory as the cause of the invasion, yet in enclosure 8 of despatch, 1878,2 he admits that the Boers are in a worse position than they have ever been; and clearly allows it to be seen, that under him and his, for the first time in history, had disputed territory actually fallen into the hands of the savages.

If Sir Theophilus has thus to correct himself on two most important points, and if these points were amongst those that principally induced Lord Carnarvon to permit the annexation, then it is clear that a case for inquiry is made out, when it can be ascertained where and how the statements originated that have been so fatally used.

If something is not done, and done soon, misfortune must and will come. The Boers are a stern Protestant people, unused to luxury, and unswayed by the mean considerations that enervate the masses elsewhere; they are the majority, and are, so far as I know, the colonists. There never yet was a good cause that did not bring forth a leader; few religions want for martyrs.

The one great fact I want to keep before the mind of my readers is, that false representations are not only possible, but are too commonly resorted to by colonial parties desiring to secure the ear of the Colonial Minister. Few-very few ---colonial officials ever gather a correct knowledge of surrounding facts. They live in a sort of misty traditionary atmosphere, into which truth seldom penetrates. Even col1 See Appendix I, despatch 38. 2 See Appendix K.