Office in London against him: and
the administration was therefore wise or foolish, liberal or severe,
according to the qualities of the individual Governor. Some serious
mistakes were committed, and one Governor, Lord Charles Somerset, has
left the reputation of arbitrary rule; but the officials sent out seem,
on the whole, to have pursued a more judicious policy and shown more
respect to local opinion than the representatives of the Dutch East
India Company had (with one or two brilliant exceptions) done in the
previous century. The blunders which preceded the Great Trek of 1836
were attributable rather to the home government than to its agents on
the spot, and in the years that followed colonial feeling complained
more often of Downing-street than it did of Government House at Cape
Town. The irritation which from time to time broke out sprang chiefly
from questions connected with the natives. Like all Europeans dwelling
among inferior races, the mass of the colonists, English as well as
Dutch, looked upon the native population as existing for their benefit,
and resented the efforts which the home government made to secure for
the blacks equal civil rights and adequate protection. Their wrath was
specially kindled by the vehemence with which a few among the
missionaries denounced any wrongs deemed to have been suffered by the
natives within the Colony, and argued the case of the Kafir tribes who
were from time to time in revolt. I do not attempt to apportion the
blame in these disputes; but any one who has watched the relations of
superior and inferior races in America or India or the Pacific islands
will think it probable that many harsh and unjust things were done by
the colonists, as every one who knows how zeal tends to mislead the
judgment of well-intentioned men will think it no less probable that
there was some exaggeration on the part of the philanthropic friends of
the blacks, and that some groundless charges were brought against the
colonists. The missionaries, especially those of the London Society, had
a certain influence with the Colonial Office, and were supposed to have
much more than they had. Thus from 1820 to about 1860 there was a
perpetual struggle between the colonists and the missionaries, in which
struggle the Governor tended to side with the colonists, whose public
opinion he felt round him, while the Colonial Office leaned to the
philanthropists, who could bring political pressure to bear throu