which arise wherever a higher and a lower, or a
stronger and a weaker, race live together under a democratic government.
To make race or colour or religion a ground of political disability runs
counter to what used to be deemed a fundamental principle of democracy,
and to what has been made (by recent amendments) a doctrine of the
American Constitution. To admit to full political rights, in deference
to abstract theory, persons who, whether from deficient education or
want of experience as citizens of a free country, are obviously unfit to
exercise political power is, or may be, dangerous to any commonwealth.
Some way out of the contradiction has to be found, and the democratic
Southern States of the North American Union and the oligarchical
Republic of Hawaii (now (1899) annexed to the United States), as well as
the South African Colonies, have all been trying to find such a way. The
problem has in 1899 presented itself in an acute form to the United
States, who having taken hold of the Philippine Isles, perceive the
objections to allowing the provisions of their Federal Constitution to
have effect there, but have not yet decided how to avoid that result.
Natal, where the whites are in a small minority, now refuses the
suffrage to both Indians and Kafirs; while Cape Colony, with a much
larger proportion of whites excludes the bulk of her coloured people by
the judicious application of an educational and property qualification.
The two Boer Republics deny the supposed democratic principle, and are
therefore consistent in denying all political rights to people of
colour. The Australian Colonies have taken an even more drastic method.
Most of them forbid the Chinese to enter the country, and admit the
dark-skinned Polynesian only as a coolie labourer, to be sent back when
his term is complete. France, however, is more indulgent, and in some of
her tropical Colonies extends the right of voting, both for local
assemblies and for members of the National Assembly in France, to all
citizens, without distinction of race or colour.

Maritzburg is a cheerful little place, with an agreeable society,
centred in Government House, and composed of diverse elements, for the
ministers of state and other officials, the clergy, the judges, and the
officers of the garrison, furnish a number, considerable for so small a
town, of capable and cultivated men. There are plenty of excursions, the
best of which is to the beautiful falls of the Um