and of peaceful desires, should be unceasingly harassed by the white people from the Cape, whom our Government has actually refused to control! The Governors of the Cape have dealt with Moshesh and the Basootus as if they were outlaws. One of those Governors, Sir H. Smith, proclaimed their lands to be British, without any pretence of their being legally acquired. Another, General Cathcart, assumed illegal authority over them without even power to maintain it. And the present Governor, adopting the hostility of the Colonial Office to the conciliatory system suppressed upon the Caffre frontier, states that he has no desire to make TREATIES with native chiefs." This avowal, taken along with this Governor's discouragement of the Caffre chiefs so early as on the third month of his arrival at the Cape, and with the terrible sufferings he has since inflicted upon them, reveals the scheme of coercive policy set up twenty years ago against the judicious and philanthropic plans so successfully carried out by Sir Andries Stockenström, with strong parliamentary approval. The case is even stronger, and ought to be probed to the bottom in all its bearings. This Governor arrived at his post in December, 1854; and on the 22nd of that month writes home that he has framed a new plan of border administration of a most extraordinary character, to the execution of which he asks a contribution from home of 40,000l. annually for ten years, to which the Cape colony is to add 5,000. a year, as they willingly might. With this ample draft upon Whitehall to set up with, the new Cape Governor proposes, with a fortnight's knowledge of South Africa, to set all right in that vast region of social volcanoes, into which Parliament had already thrown at least five millions sterling, not to this day fully audited. Before Parliament meets, namely, by a despatch dated the 3rd of February, 1855, our Secretary of State for the Colonies approves this hasty plan of the Cape Governor. If the papers containing the details are correct copies of those despatches from us to the colony, such quick work upon a grave subject would appear incredible. As it is, the only explanation admissible is, that the new plan professed to be sent from Cape Town so rapidly after the Governor's inauguration in his post was taken out with him from Downing Street. The honoured name of Lord John Russell is affixed to the hasty approval of this hastilyannounced scheme; and it is due to his Lordship to pause until he shall throw some light upon this transaction. In some sense it has become matter of history. The present ministers have cut down the 40,000l. this session to 20,000l., and it is understood that next year the whole subsidy will be struck off. * Despatch of 27th September. Papers presented to Parliament in August, 1857. The Present Condition of Affairs. 273 The sums already given to the Governor of the Cape are not unimportant, and should be accounted for more carefully than has hitherto been found convenient. But it is the execution of the plans ending in the imprisonment of so many of the neighbouring chiefs, that call for the most rigorous scrutiny. That a colonial governor should, in his character of high commissioner of the interior adjacent to the colony, be able to bring the chiefs of that interior into the colonial prisons, and attack their people by a combination of colonial forces with the power and money intrusted to him by the British Parliament, is serious enough. But if, as is in the highest degree probable in this case, the colonial governor should turn out to be a mere instrument in the hands of those who, under the influence of false opinions, have perverted the best designs of philanthropy, and the most solemn acts of Parliament for twenty years together, the importance of the truth of the whole matter cannot be exaggerated. It is in this light a strong call is made for a solemn inquest as to Cape aborigines' affairs for the last four years. There has been a war of aggression lately made upon Moshesh by our republicans of what is called the Free State,' which the Cape Governor, Sir Harry Smith, extended so summarily into that chief's territory. He has met their shameful advance with a diguity and a moderation worthy of all honour, and they have failed in their attempt under the most disgraceful circumstances. Nevertheless, sympathisers with them are not wanting from Cape Town to Natal, where, against all the evidence of the case, a body of men have boldly declared that the barbarous tribes of South Africa are forming a league for the indulgence of their hatred of civilisation! Here, then, a stand must be made. Another league of older date is formed by the white men against the blacks, and for the nefarious purpose of getting the natives' lands after crushing them. We have succeeded in so mastering Caffreland and Tambookeeland, as the Dutch before us had mastered the Hottentots and seized their country. We are steadily pressing onwards upon other tribes to the east for the same object. A force of 1,200 white men was sent by the Free State against Moshesh, and five times that number from the older republic in the interior are ready to second that attack. And it is under such circumstances that our Governor at the Cape really takes part with the aggressors, by letting them get supplies of war at will, and by refusing such supplies to the natives, or even to treat with the latter upon a just footing. We enthusiastically support Dr. Livingstone in his heroic enterprises in the remote interior of Southern Africa, where the chiefs appreciate his sublime efforts for their improvement; and he wisely seeks to benefit their people by respecting them. How How grossly inconsistent is it, close at our own doors, to put forth our gigantic strength to destroy the very same class, eager as they are to adopt our civilisation and share its advantages! The pitiable story of some of those chiefs would be an apt topic for the ablest pens. Already, in the case of Macomo and his beautiful daughter, their misery has touched more than one feeling heart among our rude soldiery. Slaughter on the field of battle would be as the blessing of paradise to that unhappy man in his Cape dungeon, who thirty years ago told an English traveller that his only wish was to be able to write a book, and show the Christian world his country's wrongs. Parrot-like we repeat the indignant remonstrances which Tacitus put into the mouth of our own barbarous ancestor, when a prisoner in Rome, and forget that we are daily tolerating the same oppressions to be done upon black men as good as Galgacus or Caractacus. The stand to be made in favour of African civilisation is simply to undo what is now doing ill, and to revive and extend whatever has been done well wherever we have power in Africa. For example, in the south, which, with the proper observance of peculiarities may stand for every other similar region:- An end must be put to the present mystery in Cape affairs by having full accounts of them speedily laid before Parliament; The imprisoned chiefs must be released, and their country restored to them; Treaties must be made with all the tribes; More and more white settlements must be made by compacts with the coloured people, and upon a just system of compensation and union; The two interior republics on this side and beyond the Vaal River must be invited to reunite themselves to the crown; And commissions of inquiry must be despatched on all of these objects, and on every proper means of aboriginal civilisation. The foundation of white settlements, in harmony with the natives, has been assumed, without real grounds, to be a vain attempt to bring incompatible members of society together. On the contrary, millions of men, of every variety of refinement, do consort together in perfect peace in all regions, and have done so It is only, then, incumbent upon the Government to keep the peace among them, and to leave them at freedom to settle their differences according as they can, without concerning itself about their abstract aptitudes. The wants of the coloured people, and their eagerness to enjoy the several advantages of civilisation, will always dispose them to make reasonable cession of lands not needful for themselves; and the modern application of the practice of appropriating wild lands at a price, furnishes a convenient The Policy for the Future. 275 convenient means of compensating them for such tracts as they will gladly alienate. The reunion of the two Cape republics, now established in the interior, to the crown, is perhaps the most difficult object of South African policy; but that reunion is of extreme urgency in reference to the safety and civilisation of the native tribes. The easier task will be to effect a reunion with the Free State, or Orange River sovereignty, now at war with Moshesh. Its practicability is obvious in the loudly-declared wishes of many of its inhabitants, Cape-Dutch, Dutch, and English. The pro clamation of its independence of the crown, without the authority of an Act of Parliament, is believed by good lawyers to have been as illegal as would be a ministerial cession of Yorkshire or the Isle of Wight to France. But there is no doubt of the impropriety of that severance of British territory and of the acquiescence in a second republic of British subjects adjacent to the Cape Colony. As to the more remote republic of our fellow-subjects recognised by ministers, beyond the Vaal River, they must be dealt with more carefully. But so many powerful motives exist for their changing their present disturbed state, that trustworthy overtures to them will assuredly be received with satisfaction. The free constitution now set up in the Cape Colony, if properly explained to the republicans, will go far to reconcile them to us, and help the settlement of other grave points of difference with our Go vernment. The choice of the only person living fit to negociate this grave measure of civilisation in South Africa, Sir Andries Stockenström, to carry it out, will be a guarantee to its success. The appointment of periodical commissions of inquiry will be the crowning step to secure its results and give it permanence. The uses of such commissions in all quarters will not be limited to the collection of correct intelligence and the suggestion of good measures, but they will conciliate all parties with whom the commissioners will regularly communicate. Great names might be added to Mr. Pitt's and Mr. Burke's in the catalogue of those who have been the best friends to Africa. Some of the oldest of our contemporaries were witnesses to and sharers in the gigantic efforts of our fathers to win the prize of her freedom. The Broughams and the Lushingtons have not assuredly deserted the path worn bare by the Clarksons, the Granville Sharps, the Wilberforces, and the Buxtons, their friends of another generation. They will approve of even this feeble call for help where help is sorely needed; and they know well how to strengthen this feeble call so as to compel Ministers to be just where they are now unjust; to be awake where they are now now asleep; merciful where they are cruel; and where they are now by their own gross ignorance exposed to deception, to be equal to their duties by acquiring the knowledge belonging to their eminent posts. ART. VI.-1. Permanent American Temperance Documents. New York. American Temperance Union. 2. The Maine Law. Adopted by the Legislature of the State of Maine. 1851. 3. Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the Portland Riot. Portland. 1855. 4. Alliance Weekly News. chester. Tweedie, London. United Kingdom Alliance, Man THE law,' said JUDGE PLATT of the United States, in 1833, 'which licenses the sale of ardent spirits is an impediment to the temperance reformation. Whenever public opinion and the moral sense of our community shall be so far corrected and matured, as to regard them in their true light, and when the public safety shall be thought to require it, dram-shops will be indictable at common law as public nuisances.' On the 8th July, 1856, at Rockport, Massachusetts, some two hundred women assembled, and, proceeding to several places where intoxicating liquor was sold, entered by force, and destroyed the liquors they found. The owner at once set in motion the machinery of law to punish these daring violators of the sanctity of property. The defendants pleaded that their acts were justifiable, inasmuch as liquors kept for sale were by statute of 1855 declared to be common nuisances, and as such could be abated by the destruction of such liquors. In charging the jury, CHIEF-JUSTICE SHAW said, 'Two acts of the year 1855 (ch. 215, § 37, and ch. 405, § 1) have been cited and relied on. By the first of these, all intoxicating liquors kept for sale, and the implements and vessels actually used, are declared common nuisances. By the latter, "all buildings, places, or tenements used as houses of ill fame, resorted to for prostitution, lewdness, or for illegal gaming, or used for the illegal sale or keeping of intoxicating liquors, are hereby declared common nuisances, and are to be regarded and treated as such." carefully pointing out the high responsibility attached to the enjoyment of such a right, and the great caution required in its exercise, the learned judge proceeded:- All persons have a right to abate a public nuisance. As in cases cited by the defendants, individuals may cut down a gate erected in a highway, or destroy And a bridge |