118E8 OF THE C.A_FFRE WAR.—III.
NOT the least obvious of the advantages accruing from the war in Caffisria, is the fact of its affording some relief to the discussion of ordinary Colonial polities. When the mind is wearied by discuss- ing rights, which are supported by arguments fatiguingly reiterated, and obstructed by excuses that begin to give way through sheer wear and tear, it is a relief to all parties to turn to squabbling about red coats and black skins, their eventful warfare, hairbreadth escapes in mountain-pastures, and the comical interludes performed by that farcical Scipio Africanus Sir Harry Smith. It is pleasant, if only for a change. But it is also practically convenient. All historians know the old " dodge " used by princes when their subjects become trouble- some—going to war ; "binding their coats," as Voltaire says," with coarse white worsted five sous to the ell, and marching away with them to glory." It gives them something, else to think about and to do, than to discuss, agitate, and nurse.their own discontents. At home it is not less practically convenient. Discussions on useful subjects, such as the Constitution, could scarcely be stretched over the six months and handed over to "next -session," even with all the aids from Anti-Papal debates, a Budget "his," and sanitary reforms which are to be (?) executed, if it-were not, as a printer would say, "spaced out" with blanks, like the perfectly idle Caffio war. That Ministers fully appreciated the advantage thence de- rivable, is plain from the fact of their trying to make the com- mencement of the constitution depend upon the termination of that row across the border between Sir Harry Smith and his ,pro- teges. The sweeping away of cabbage-leaves in Covent Garden market did not more depend upon the defeat of John the _Leyden Prophet in Covent Garden Operahonse; but if the parish author- ities can contrive to postpone any work about the market until Signor Mario shalllefinatty assassinated, it may save some-trouble in the mean time—to the sweepers. It would at least postpone the trouble till "next season." Besides, the Caffre war offers a capital opportunity of making as if the Cape colony occasioned some demand upon the English exchequer—as if Ministers had to ask something from Parliament for-the colony, and as if they the Ministers were generously re- turning contumacy with munificence. We all know better—we all know that the colonists, left alone, would settle their own borders without demanding a sixpence from Rngland: but Minis- ters talk ore-rotundally oi" supporting the colony'," and somehow the public is thimblexagged into the idea that the money for the Caffin war is really paid to the Cape of Good Hope ! Public, es- peeially Peace-promoting, Economical Public, feels its sympathy
for the injured Cape much damped. A Cape that costs millions sterling every now and then has no right to speak so independently of its rights. Let it pay its way, and then ask for justice. Tedious and trivial debates also are fertile in another Ministerial resource—the "count-out." Smother a subject in trivialities, and it is difficult for the enervated English constitution to keep up its energies against lassitude or "to keep a House." Such things as Caffic wars are the raw material of triviality and tedium.
Another good. The colonists have not submitted unquestioning to the edicts of a Minister—they did not accept, with thanks, the convicts they abhorred; they were not grateful for the Minister's waiving his pledge; they did not shut 'their eyes and open their mouths for the constitution which he might please to send them. They rudely stared, rudely questioned, more rudely resisted, and more rudely conquered. But they have a weak side : their border is exposed to Blacks ; their property can be pillaged ; a-policy at once inciting those Blacks by vain burlesque ceremonies, exaspe- rating by taking their pasture-lands not for settlers but soldiers, egging them on with vacillation and rashness, may draw upon the property and homes of the settlers the full force of predacious ag- gression: a frontier war may be the great revenge for a convict- ship repulsed and a constitution disparaged.
Previous page
