elebrate the arrival of the railway, and
assuredly that would have been impossible on a tropical day in any other
tropical country I know of. We have seen scores of infants on the
streets, in the suburbs, on the plains outside, in arms, and in
perambulators, and they all looked thriving, pink, and happy. The
market of Bulawayo each day shows us English vegetables fresh from the
garden. We have seen specimens of the cereals. Well, then, it appears
to me certain that there will be a masterful population in this country
before long, which it would be the height of unwisdom to vex overmuch
with obsolete ordinances and bye-laws such as obtain in Portuguese
Africa, and burdensome taxes and rates on the traffic that must arise as
this country grows in wealth and population. It may be hoped that
intelligent Portuguese will do all in their power to promote concord and
good feeling with their neighbour, to check refractory chiefs from doing
anything to disturb the peace, for nothing could make the people of
Rhodesia more restless than interruption to traffic, and a sense of
insecurity. If they do that the Portuguese territory must become
enriched by the neighbourhood of Rhodesia.

LESSONS TO NORTHERN NEIGHBOURS.

The Congo State will doubtless recognise its profit by the advent of the
railway to Bulawayo and the extension of the line towards its southern
borders, and the arrangements of the Government will be such as to
ensure respect for boundaries and to teach the native tribes that
transgression of such will be dangerous.

The British Government have a valuable object lesson for the development
of African colonies. For over two hundred years the West African
colonies have been stagnating for lack of such means of communication.
They have been unable to utilise their resources. Their natural
pretensions to the hinterlands have been grievously curtailed, and what
ought to have been British is now French. Nyasaland has also too long
suffered from Imperial parsimony. The function of government should
comprise something more than police duty or the collection of taxes.
The removal of causes injurious to health and life, and the
establishment of communication as required by circumstances of climate,
and needful to augment commerce, are just as urgent as the prevention of
lawlessness and the collection of imposts. The climate of Nyasaland has
slain more valuable men than the assegais of the Angoni. Against the
latter t