of South America
the benefits of ordered freedom and a progressive population. Had the
territories of the Argentine Republic (which now include Patagonia),
territories then almost vacant, been purchased from Spain and peopled
from England, a second Australia might have arisen in the West, and
there would now be a promise not only of commerce, but ultimately of a
league based upon community of race, language, and institutions between
three great English-speaking States in the south temperate zone. That
opportunity has, however, passed away; and southern South America,
having now been settled by Spaniards and Italians, with a smaller number
of Germans, seems destined to such fortunes as the Hispano-American race
can win for her. But it may well be hoped that as trade increases
between South Africa and Australia, there may come with more frequent
intercourse a deepening sense of kinship and a fuller sympathy,
inspiring to both communities, and helpful to any efforts that may
hereafter be made to knit more closely together the English-speaking
peoples all over the world.

Although the relations of the white race to the black constitute the
gravest of the difficulties which confront South Africa, this difficulty
is not the nearest one. More urgent, if less serious, is the other race
problem--that of adjusting the rights and claims of the Dutch and the
English.

It has already been explained that, so far as Cape Colony and Natal are
concerned, there is really no question pending between the two races,
and nothing to prevent them from working in perfect harmony and concord.
Neither does the Orange Free State provide any fuel for strife, since
there both Boers and English live in peace and are equally attached to
the institutions of their Republic. It is in the Transvaal that the
centre of disturbance lies; it is thence that the surrounding earth has
so often been shaken and the peace of all South Africa threatened. I
have already described the circumstances which brought about the recent
troubles in that State. To comment upon what has happened since the
rising, to criticize either the attitude of the President or the various
essays in diplomacy of the British Government, would be to enter that
field of current politics which I have resolved to avoid. What may fitly
be done here is to state the uncontroverted and dominant facts of the
situation as it stands in the autumn of 1897.[90]

What are these facts? The Boer populati