“ What of its vast coal and iron deposits, its saltpetre, its petroleum, and its countless other products which to-day are but waiting the advent of capital to bring into being, all of which, like its gold, have yet to astonish the world? Gold or no gold, the country must, as the years unfold, become a teeming hive of industry, the only approximation to which is that of the United States of America. ”

“ Throughout South Africa it is, of course, the duty of the loyal South African of British origin or British sympathies to endeavour to recognise at their best the many sterling qualities of the Dutch, and to forgive with what charity he may their besetting sins, condoning them as the resultants of environment and circumstance. It is also their duty to recognise that the past mistakes of Downing Street were chiefly due to lack of brain and thought, rather than to lack of heart, and to determine to work with all true patriots for the lasting good and welfare of South Africa. ”

“ The three great essentials of any successful scheme, according to Lord Milner’s showing, are these: it must have magnitude, it must deal with land of good quality, it must attract settlers of the right kind. In the matter of magnitude there are many and intricate questions to be discussed. Land settlement must be undertaken on a large scale else it will be politically unimportant, the Boer States will remain Boer States in all but name, and any money advanced by the British speculator will be like the talent hidden in a napkin—just a talent and nothing more, till the end of the chapter! ”

“ In endeavouring to show that the future outlook for South African trade is one which our manufacturers cannot possibly ignore, by reason of its incalculable vastness, it is reasonable to suppose that each member of the Imperial family, whether it be the Mother Country, its offsprings, or the humblest citizen of either, will strain every nerve to conserve to it the spoils for which such sacrifices in blood and treasure have been made, thus handing down to our children a heritage of wealth which is their right equally as it is our duty. ”

“ Even now the British colonist has many substantial excuses for averring that loyalty does not pay. In view of these facts it behoves Great Britain to admit frankly her past errors and to resolve, if she means to retain her hold on South Africa, to order her footsteps differently in the future. It behoves Great Britain, if she would avoid future risks of triangular disloyalty and the grave disasters, local and international, which might supervene on another period of neglect and snubbing, to trust the men on the spot. It behoves her to govern South Africa firmly, consistently, and unemotionally ”

“ The working of the railways during the war reflects the greatest credit on the managers and employées of all South African railways. It was impossible to tell when a train would run through a band of snipers, one or more of its occupants paying the penalty of death, or when the engine might be hoisted by a hidden charge of dynamite, and the machine and its drivers turned to wreckage. During the war the railway service required qualities of endurance and courage equal to those possessed by the bravest soldier in the field. ”

“ The young Africander must be taught that we of the old country have learned our lesson. He must know that each of the British self-governing colonies is a separate nation in alliance of its own free will with the mother-land. He must know that even in the wildest dreams of Africanderism the most separatist of the separatists desired the naval stations of the Cape to remain one of the chief resorts of the British fleet. ”

“ It is only needful to glance back at the modest proportions of South Africa’s trade movement before the discovery, first of diamonds and then of gold, to recognise how much it owes to its mineral wealth, and more particularly to that of gold, for its present-day prosperity. Its populations, its cities and ports, its railway network, its multifarious industries from agriculture upwards, and its merchant firms and commercial activity have each and all been stimulated and enlarged enormously by it. ”

“ Unjust taxation would be a suicidal policy; it would retard the flow of capital, render all but a few higher-grade mines unprofitable, with the result that the budgets of the new colonies would show deficits year after year. Not only would capital awaiting employment be frightened into other channels, but schemes of federation would remain sterile schemes; and the hope of a prosperous and united South Africa would continue a mere day-dream, impossible of accomplishment. ”

“ So excellent and so thorough is the work accomplished—in education, in replacing the machinery of the higher civil administration throughout the colonies—that, without hyperbole, it may be said to fill one with admiration and wonder. If one could always be sure of getting such a man as Joseph Chamberlain at the Colonial Office, and such a man as Alfred Milner as High Commissioner, one would be strongly in favour of retaining permanently as much power as possible in the hands of the holders of these two offices. ”

“ To meet the requirements which the circumstances demand, a far-stretching network of railways—with wide meshes it is true—is growing over the country. Instead of the old system of ox transport and coaches drawn by mules, which ten years ago were the only means of approach to the Transvaal and Rhodesia, there are now modern freight trains, drawn by heavy-type locomotives, hauling up the vast import traffic to the Rand, and running down return loads of wool and hides from the grassy uplands of the Orange River Colony, and the barren-looking, but wide and productive, karroo plains of the Cape. ”

“ I am convinced that the majority of South Africans are anxious to see a ‘United South Africa,’ and I believe they will see it before long. I cannot, of course, speak for the Dutch; but I am sure that every ‘Britisher’ in Natal and in Rhodesia, and nine out of every ten ‘Britishers’ in the rest of South Africa, are in favour of federation. The great problems of South African development can only be completely solved by a central authority. ”

“ We allude to the terrible results of the war in order to bring to the knowledge of the world our urgent needs, by no means to inflame people’s minds. The sword is now sheathed, and all differences are silent in presence of such great misery. The ruin caused by the war is indescribable, so that the small amount which Great Britain is to give us, in accordance with the terms of surrender, even were it multiplied tenfold, would be wholly insufficient even to cover the war losses alone. ”

“ If one cared or dared to venture upon the hazardous ground of prophecy, one might easily foretell the possibility of other Rands being discovered meanwhile, with the practical certainty that a hundred years hence South Africa’s gold yield, instead of showing diminution, will largely exceed even present anticipations; and here it is justifiable to intrude the remark that every expert, without exception, who is connected with its gold industry, is unanimous in asserting that mining has hardly been begun, and that the future will exceed the expectations of even the most optimistically inclined. ”

“ When we consider clearly and definitely all the facts, remember that history repeats itself and that the Africanders are profoundly tenacious of their political opinions and have proved themselves to be a people who are able to wait, can we not see at once how desirable it is to suspend temporarily the constitution of the Cape Colony? The body politic requires a physician. No one better understands the subject or is more competent to prescribe than Lord Milner. ”

“ The climate of the Rhodesian plateau is undoubtedly healthy and well suited to British colonists. It is a land where the white man can work in the fields. The British children reared here are as rosy of cheek and as sturdy of limb as those at home. There is, of course, malaria in the lowlands, but that will disappear before occupation and civilisation, even as it has done in once unhealthy districts of the Transvaal and the Cape Colony. ”

“ The science of irrigation in its most modern development—“the foundation-stone on which can be built the permanent prosperity of South Africa”—is capable of transforming the profitless deserts into flowering gardens and fruitful orchards which in very few years will do more than pay their way. But to properly develop any scheme requiring eternal vigilance, industry, and foresight, it is necessary that a goodly sprinkling of the enterprising British population shall be dispersed all over the land, so that not in the towns alone will the characteristics of the dominant race be maintained. ”

“ Abundance of labour, too—always a crucial question with mining operations, whether they be on the Rand, in Rhodesia, or elsewhere in the sub-continent—is, for a variety of causes, not yet available, although measures have been taken by the Government and the mining industry, acting in concert, which have placed this subject on a more satisfactory footing than it ever enjoyed. Other advances have been made in the improvement of the status of the industry, such, for instance, as the reduction of the customs duties, which enormously improve the industry’s chances of future remunerative working. ”

“ Immigrants of all European nationalities learn to speak and write English—their children of the next generation become Americans. As a London Consul-General of the United States pointed out to me, the reunion of the European race, as a political measure on a vast scale, has been first accomplished in the American Commonwealth. Never since the pre-historic time of the root-origins of our language, never since the corporate unity of the Roman Empire, has there been so vast a breaking down of barriers between Europeans. ”

“ It had “paralysed our political life.” “In fact,” he goes on to say, “the Bond has sacrificed the welfare of the country for years to the selfish attainment of one object, namely, the supremacy of the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of the Cape Colony, regardless of the rights of others; the imagined good of an ignorant clique of the Dutch has been preferred to the good of the country. These men must not have power; they are wholly unfit to have it. The Bond is a body striving solely for its own benighted ends, and founded and conducted on race lines.” ”

“ South Africa is a country of magnificent distances, with the centres of industry situated at points far apart in the wide interior; the country villages are dotted about with thirty to fifty miles of brown karroo or verdant veldt in between; even the homesteads of the Boers are planted at respectful distances from each other. In such a country a comprehensive, efficient, and cheap railway system is absolutely necessary; without railways the development of trade and industry could not be pushed forward on any large scale. ”

“ The idea of outnumbering the Dutch inhabitants seems to them preposterous—even vindictive. They would prefer the British Government and the British taxpayers, in matters connected with their own policy and their own expenditure, to be out-voiced by the inhabitants of the territory they have spent blood and treasure to conquer. But to discuss the arguments of these quibblers would be sheer waste of time and of space. Obstructions ever have their value. ”

“ Botha says that England’s weak and spasmodic policy in South Africa has made the Boer what he is to-day—distrustful and contemptuous of British statesmen. By further receding into the interior, and having to fight wild beasts and hordes of Kaffirs, the Boer became blown out with vanity at his own prowess, and more and more ignorant. Through this ignorance it is easier to mislead than to lead him. A man who plays upon his vanity and prejudices against England quickly obtains influence. A loud talker and blusterer gets a better hearing than a quiet reasoner. ”

“ There are no handsomer women anywhere than there are among the Dutch ladies of Cape Colony. Many of their sons are sent to English public schools and universities, and though there are, alas, only too many who live under British institutions and who do not become British, there is no reason why, in course of time, they should not become as good citizens of a British Commonwealth as have the Vanderbilts and Van Horns and Roosevelts, and many others of Dutch name and lineage in New York State, for New York was New Amsterdam, and a very flourishing Dutch colony. ”

“ The financial and other assistance given to our women and children in the concentration camps, and to the prisoners of war in all parts of the earth contributed infinitely to mitigate the lot of those poor sufferers, and we take advantage of this opportunity to express in the name of the people of the late Republics our fervent thanks to all those who have charitably assisted us in the past. The small Boer nation can never forget the help it received in its dark hours of suffering. ”

“ As to Africa, our hold on it depends entirely upon the strength of our national grip. If our hand is growing flabby and listless, and, alas! there are too many indications that such is the case; if France is to gain her ends in the Mediterranean; if sentimental views in regard to the natives are to prompt us to stand idly by while such organisations as the so-called Ethiopian Church of the United States working from the south, and the emissaries of a militant Mahommedanism from the north, conspire informally to undermine their loyalty, then our days in Africa are numbered. ”

“ In the schools English history and its modern expansion in the colonies should be taught. Half of the dislike of England shown in the Republic and among the people in the United States arises from the teaching of the school-books, which indoctrinates the young American with the idea that as all tyranny known to his American fathers was centralised and expressed in Lord North’s Stamp Act and the Tea Duties, so the modern Britisher must still be imbued with the ideas of Lord North, and taxation without representation must go hand in hand with British rule. ”

“ Despite the constant drains upon our best and most vital manhood the possession—protection and administration—of the most extensive empire of this or any age impose upon the United Kingdom, upon, that is to say, a small and no longer rapidly increasing nation, I do not believe that there would be any ground for the fear that we have annexed more territory than we can effectively administer, or that we have incurred greater responsibilities than we can sustain, if we had the presence of mind, the initiative and sense to utilise those latent sources of unexhausted supply we now wilfully neglect. ”