against each other, of whom one is a
man whose methods of attack are limited by nineteenth-century ideas,
while the morality of the other, being that of the seventeenth
century, permits him greater freedom of action, it is obvious that the
first will be at a disadvantage. And this would be the case more than
ever if the nineteenth-century statesman was under the impression that
his political antagonist was a man whose code of morals was identical
with his own. When once he had learnt that the moral standard of the
other was lower than, or different from, his own, he would of course
make allowance for the circumstance, and he would then be able to
contest the position with him upon equal terms. But until he had
grasped this fact he would be at a disadvantage.

Generally speaking, the representatives of the British Government,
both Governors and High Commissioners, soon learnt that neither the
natives nor the Dutch population could be dealt with on the same
footing as a Western European. But the British Government cannot be
said to have thoroughly learnt the same lesson until, in almost the
last week of the nineteenth century, the three successive defeats of
Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colenso aroused it to a knowledge of the
fact that we had been within an ace of losing South Africa. Many,
indeed, would question whether even now the lesson had been thoroughly
learnt. But, however this may be, it is certain that throughout the
nineteenth century the Home Government wished to treat both the
natives and the Dutch in South Africa on a basis of British ideas; and
that by so doing it constantly found itself in conflict with its own
local representatives, who knew that the only hope of success lay in
dealing with both alike on a basis of South African ideas.

As the result of this chronic inability of British statesmen to
understand South Africa, it follows that the most instructive manner
of regarding our administration of that country during the nineteenth
century is to get a clear conception of the successive divergences of
opinion between the home and the local authorities.

At the very outset of British administration--during the temporary
occupation of the Cape from 1795 to 1808--we find a theoretically
perfect policy laid down for the guidance of the early English
Governors in their treatment of the Boers, or Dutch frontier farmers.
It is just as admirable, in its way, as were the instructions for the
treatment of t