A fatality appears to attend every movement of our Government
connected with South Africa. The steamer employed - to 'convey the Rifles to- the Cape has proved utterly unfit-for a troop-ship there was no place to stow away the soldiers' rifles and -accoutre- meats, no lookers to receive their food. During the first night Of the voyage; d-ien or eight hundred men were obliged te remainen deck, without beds; in a high gale, which shook them about among beer-barrels, hampers, and drums. . . Her Majesty's steam-frigate -Megtera was on that night only a picture in small of the state of our South • African possessions. The combined imbecility and negligence which at home is incom- petent to enthark troops comfortably in a transport,' is in the co- lony incompetent to. bring to a close the war against a few not very numerous tribes,of savages, orrestore a legal governinent to the colonists. The Governor remains blocked up in his head-quar- lers, while desultory attempts to reduce the mountain fastnesses of the Caffres lead only to a waste of the lives of British soldiers. -The enemy in the mean time make, with impunity, repeated forays into-the colony, and are constantly receiving accessions of numbers and warlike skill by the desertions from. our trained Hottentots. and absence of Sir Harry Smith from the seat of government, the. Colonial Secretary and the nominee Council seem intent -upon Procreatimiting the enactment 'of the constitution, of which -a draught has been transmitted by Earl Grey, and which the colo- nists are eager to see' completed and put in action, as the beat they can obtain to begin with.' Havoc, devastation, and violence On the frontier—destitution of legal government within the colony '—'-the condition of the inhabitants is assuredly not to be envied; and yet the future presents to them no prospect but an aggrava-
tion of those evils. - ' . •
For all this the Imperial Government is responsible. Sir Ilarry Smith may be incompetent—but it is the Government in Downing Street that keeps him in place : the clique or coterie that obstructs and procrastinates the 'enactment of . the constitution may be seek- ing. to put off the evil day that will strip theinOf Consequence, without the . sanction of their inperiers-L-lint it. ii.the Imperial Government that allows them. to play this game. . • In the present state of the pOlitioal World, Great Britain cannot afford to lose her prestige by submitting to be bullied and baffled by a handful of savages:- But, supposing a'triumphent period'put to the Caffre war, (and that can now be done Only at great cost,) by what means are suchinglorious and unprofitable contests with barbarians to be eschewed- in future P The question concerns not our South African settlements alone ; those in' New Zealand are equally interested in its practical solution. It is a remarkable feet, that while, the hostile Caffree set at 'nought the power of Great Britain, in the a ling settlements of emigrant boors keep their ground almost without- an effort against the more numerous and equally warliketribes of the interior. • In like manner, the squatting bay-whalers, who preceded any systematic attempts at colonization in New Zealand, were less molested by the natives than the more numerous moral who are protected :by British ships and soldiers. . The moral of these facts would' appear to be, that the-safety of our colonies froin the attacks of savages, both in South:Africa and New .Zealand, will' be best insured by leaving the colonists to provide for their own defence. When they know that they are to be thrown upon their own resources, they will exert themselves to avoid collisions.
