ince in this case the
British settlers were in agreement with the Boers. It was no longer
merely a divergence of views as between the local and the home
authority, but as between the British in Britain and the British in
South Africa. It must also be remembered that, in the same year as the
Kafir invasion, a social revolution--the emancipation of slaves--had
been accomplished in the Cape Colony by an Act of the British
Parliament, in comparison with which the nationalisation of the
railways or of the mines in England would seem a comparatively
trifling disturbance of the system of private property to the
Englishman of to-day. The reversal of D'Urban's arrangements for the
safety of the eastern frontier was not only bad in itself, but it came
at a bad time. Whether the secession of the Emigrant Farmers would in
any case have taken place as the result of the emancipation of slaves
is a matter which cannot now be decided. But, however this may be, the
fact remains that two men so well qualified to give an opinion on the
subject as Judge Cloete and Sir John Robinson, the first Prime
Minister of Natal, unhesitatingly ascribe the determining influence
which drove the Boers to seek a home beyond the jurisdiction of the
British Government to the sense of injustice created by the measures
dictated by Lord Glenelg, and by the whole spirit of his despatch.[3]
And this judgment is supported by the fact that the wealthier Dutch of
the Western Province were much more seriously affected by the
emancipation of slaves than the "Boers" of the eastern districts of
the Colony; yet it was these latter, of course, who provided the bulk
of the emigrants who crossed the Orange River in the years of the
Great Trek (1835-8) We shall not therefore be drawing an extravagantly
improbable conclusion, if we decide that the movement which divided
European South Africa was due to a well-ascertained divergence of
opinion between the home and local authorities--both British.

[Footnote 3: For the benefit of those who may desire to read
the passages in which these opinions are expressed, I append
the references. Cloete's opinion is to be found in his "Five
Lectures on the Emigration of the Dutch Farmers," delivered
before the Natal Society and published at Capetown in 1856. A
reprint of this work was published by Mr. Murray in 1899. Sir
John Robinson's opinion, which endorses the views of Mrs.