by the people of
the different Congressional Districts, and regard their most important
duty as looking after the interests of their respective districts. The
United States Senators are elected by the legislatures of the several
States, and do not feel that sense of responsibility to the people that
is incident to an election by the people. The Governors of the various
States are elected by all of the people of the State, and they are more
directly "tribunes of the people" than any other officials, either in
our National or State Governments. These officers will thus give a
correct expression of the sentiment of the people of the States upon
public questions.

While these expressions of opinion will naturally vary according to the
sentiments and opinions of the people of the various States
represented, yet, on the whole, they will represent more of progress
and more of actual contact with present-day problems than could be
secured from any similar number of public officials. And the addresses
and discussions will also tend to mold the opinions of the people and
have a marked influence not only upon State, but also upon National
legislation.

UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA A.D. 1910

PROF. STEPHEN LEACOCK

Few historical events have been so impressive as the sudden and
complete union of the South-African States. Seldom have men's minds
progressed so rapidly, their life purposes changed so completely. In
1902 England, with the aid of her African colonists in Cape Colony and
Natal, was ending a bitter war, almost of extermination, against the
Dutch "Boers" of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. In that year
the ablest and most dreaded of England's enemies in Africa was the
Dutch General, Louis Botha, leader of the fiercest and most
irreconcilable Boers, who still waged a hopeless guerrilla warfare
against all the might of the British Empire. As one English paper
dramatically phrases it: "One used to see pictures of Botha in the
illustrated papers in those days, a gaunt, bearded, formidable figure,
with rifle and bandoliers--the most dangerous of our foes. To-day he is
the chief servant of the King in the Federation, the loyal head of the
Administration under the Crown, one of the half-dozen Prime Ministers
of the Empire, the responsible representative and virtual ruler of all
races, classes, and sects in South Africa, acclaimed by the men he led
in the battle and the rout no less than by the men who faced him across