issioner of South Africa in succession to Sir Henry Loch, and in the
same year Mr Chamberlain became secretary of state for the colonies.

_Movement for Commercial Federation_.--With the development of railways,
and the extension of trade between Cape Colony and the Transvaal, there
had grown up a closer relationship on political questions. Whilst
premier of Cape Colony, by means of the customs union and in every other
way, Rhodes endeavoured to bring about a friendly measure of at least
commercial federation among the states and colonies of South Africa. He
hoped to establish both a commercial and a railway union, and a speech
which he made in 1894 at Cape Town admirably describes this policy:--

"With full affection for the flag which I have been born under, and
the flag I represent, I can understand the sentiment and feeling of a
republican who has created his independence, and values that before
all; but I can say fairly that I believe in the future that I can
assimilate the system, which I have been connected with, with the Cape
Colony, and it is not an impossible idea that the neighbouring
republics, retaining their independence, should share with us as to
certain general principles. If I might put it to you, I would say the
principles of tariffs, the principle of railway connexion, the
principle of appeal in law, the principle of coinage, and in fact all
those principles which exist at the present moment in the United
States, irrespective of the local assemblies which exist in each
separate state in that country."

To this policy President Kruger and the Transvaal government offered
every possible opposition. Their action in what is known as the Vaal
River Drift question will best illustrate the line of action which the
Transvaal government believed it expedient to adopt. A difficulty arose
at the termination of the agreement in 1894 between the Cape government
railway and the Netherlands railway. The Cape government, for the
purposes of carrying the railway from the Vaal river to Johannesburg,
had advanced the sum of L600,000 to the Netherlands railway and the
Transvaal government conjointly; at the same time it was stipulated that
the Cape government should have the right to fix the traffic rate until
the end of 1894, or until such time as the Delagoa Bay-Pretoria line was
completed. These rates were fixed by the Cape government at 2d. per ton
per mile, but at the beginning of 1895 th