a. Like the land itself it is a stronghold
of youth. Likewise, no other colony, and for that matter, no other
matured country exercises such a rigid censorship upon settlers. Until
the high cost of living disorganized all economic standards, no one
could establish himself in Rhodesia without a minimum capital of
L1,000. So far as farming is concerned, this is now increased to
L2,000. Therefore, you do not see the signs of failure which so
often dot the semi-virgin landscape. Knowing this, you can understand
why the immigration inspector gives the incoming travellers a rigid
cross-examination at the frontier.

Also it is simon-pure British, and more like Natal in this respect than
any other territory under the Union-jack. I had a convincing
demonstration in a personal experience. I made a speech at the Bulawayo
Club. The notice was short but I was surprised to find more than a
hundred men assembled after dinner, many in evening clothes. Some had
travelled all day on horseback or in buckboards to get there, others had
come hundreds of miles by motor car.

I never addressed a more responsive audience. What impressed me was the
kindling spirit of affection they manifested for the Mother Country. In
conversation with many of them afterwards it was interesting to hear the
sons of settlers referring to the England that they had never seen, as
"home." That night I realized as never before,--not even amid the agony
and sacrifice of the Somme or the Ancre in France,--one reason why the
British Empire is great and why, despite all muddling, it carries on. It
lies in the feeling of imperial kinship far out at the frontiers of
civilization. The colonial is in many respects a more devoted loyalist
than the man at home.

Wherever I went I found the Rhodesian agriculturist--and he constitutes
the bulk of the white population,--essentially modern in his methods. He
reminds me more of the Kansas farmer than any other alien agriculturists
that I have met. He uses tractors and does things in a big way. There is
a trail of gasoline all over the country. Motorcycles have become an
ordinary means of transport for district officials and engineers, who
fly about over the native paths that are often the merest tracks. You
find these machines in the remotest regions. The light motor car is also
beginning to be looked upon as a necessary part of the outfit of the
farmer.

There was a time when the average Rhodesian believed that gold was the