nment, and even then
the carrying of arms and the issuing of ammunition should be
contingent on the taking of the oath of allegiance."

[Sidenote: The native question.]

On the subject of the treatment of the natives in the new colonies,
the remarks of the Natal ministers are weighty and pertinent.

"For a long while," they wrote, "the natives cannot be given
political rights. The grant of such rights would have the effect
of alienating the sympathy of English and Dutch alike, and would
materially prejudice the good government of the new colonies, and
be provocative of racial bitterness. In the meantime the natives
should be taught habits of steady industry.

"Officers appointed over the natives should be acquainted with
their language and customs.

"The assumption in England that colonists are unjust and brutal
to the natives has worked great harm, and both Dutch and English
have suffered from its influence.

"A native policy out of sympathy with colonial views is likely,
owing to the past history of South Africa, to arouse so strong a
feeling that even the just rights of natives would be
disregarded. It is essential, in the interests of the natives
themselves, generally, that the Home Government should work in
accord with colonial sentiments as a whole, and the great
influence of a colonial minister in sympathy with colonists will
secure far more reforms than will any attempt to over-rule local
feeling."[325]

[Footnote 325: Cd. 1,163.]

As one of certain immediately practicable steps in the direction of
South African unity, the Natal Ministry advocated "reciprocity" in the
learned professions and the Civil Services of the several colonies. To
effect this purpose they recommended that uniform tests of
professional qualifications should be adopted throughout South Africa,
and that public officers should be allowed to proceed from the civil
service of one colony to that of another, their separate periods of
service counting as continuous "for pension and other purposes." They
also put forward a claim for the incorporation of certain districts of
the Transvaal and Orange River Colony into Natal. The justice of this
claim, in so far as it referred to a portion of Zululand wrongfully
annexed by the Transvaal Boers, was recognised by the Imperial
Government, and the district in question was transf