od government,
and to have guaranteed them against Boer encroachment, which I do not
think that we were called upon to do. It is surely not incumbent
upon us, having given up the Transvaal to the Boers, to undertake the
management of the most troublesome part of it, the Zulu border. Besides,
bad as the abandonment of the Transvaal is, I think that if it was to
be done at all, it was best to do it thoroughly, since to have kept some
natives under our protection, and to have handed over the rest to the
tender mercies of the Boers, would only be to render our injustice more
obvious, whilst weakening the power of the natives themselves to combine
in self-defence; since those under our protection would naturally have
little sympathy with their more unfortunate brethren--their interests
and circumstances being different.

The Commission do not seem to have considered the question from these
points of view, but putting them on one side, there are many other
considerations connected with it, which are ably summed up in their
Report. Amongst these is the danger of disturbances commenced between
Zulus or Swazies and Boers, spreading into Natal, and the probability
of the fomenting of disturbances amongst the Zulus by Boers. The great
argument for the retention of some territory, if only as a symbol that
the English had not been driven out of the country, is, however,
set forth in the forty-sixth paragraph of the Report, which runs as
follows:--"The moral considerations that determine the actions of
civilised Governments are not easily understood by barbarians, in whose
eyes successful force is alone the sign of superiority, and it
appeared possible that the surrender by the British Crown of one of its
possessions to those who had been in arms against it, might be looked
upon by the natives in no other way than as a token of the defeat and
decay of the British Power, and that thus a serious shock might be given
to British authority in South Africa, and the capacity of Great Britain
to govern and direct the vast native population within and without her
South African dominions--a capacity resting largely on the renown of her
name--might be dangerously impaired."

These words coming from so unexpected a source do not, though couched
in such mild language, hide the startling importance of the question
discussed. On the contrary, they accurately and with double weight
convey the sense and gist of the most damning argument against the