THE FEDERATION OF THE CAPE.
THE news from the Cape by the mail of 15th June is very good. The Legislative Assembly, it will be remembered, irritated by Lord Carnarvon's resolution to do justice to Langalibalele, or doubtful of their constituents, or influenced by the Cape-Town feeling, which extends even to Govern- ment House, and blinds Sir H. Barkly to his most obvious duties, refused to send delegates to the Conference which the Colonial Secretary has summoned to discuss the Confedera- tion of the South-African Colonies and States. The refusal was only carried, however, by an accidental majority, and it now appears that it was not in accordance with the wishes of the community. The Legislative Council has passed a formal vote of thanks to Lord Carnarvon for his despatch ; the municipal council of Graham's Town, capital of the Eastern Province, has condemned the Assembly ; the entire Press, with one exception, is in favour of the new policy ; and among the general public of all classes there has been an ex- plosion of feeling in favour of federation. The proposal is, in fact, large enough to excite the imagination of the body of the colonists ; and as we have often had occasion to point out, whenever that happens, whenever the subject of debate is large enough to appeal to popular instinct rather than customary reasoning, an English plebiscitum is rarely wrong. The form of approval adopted is not a little suggestive of this truth. In all cases, as far as we have seen, the Councils and public meetings express a sense of personal gratitude to Lord Carnarvon for thinking so much about them,—for, as one councillor said, "taking a more generous view of South- African affairs than had ever been taken before." That feeling will, we believe, be found to be very deep, and will greatly facilitate the work the Colonial Office has undertaken. Nothing has been more marked in South-African history of late years than a tone of discouragement among the people, a sort of dogged bitterness, as of men who felt that they belonged to an out-of-the-way corner of the world, and had nothing to expect either from Providence or the British Government, except the barest justice. There has been some ground for this, the quarrel about the convicts having left an unpleasant impression here, as of a people unreasonably cantankerous, and we do not wonder that the popular feeling when a great and exciting in- novation is proposed takes the unusual form of gratitude. "We, then, also—we Africandeis—are worthy of Imperial at- tention, and are to grow till we are vi-ible to the world." There is hope visible in the expressions of popular feeling, and a people or a populace which has imbibed a hope becomes as tenacious of the policy which has offered it as any aristocracy.
That plan of federating South Africa will be carried, and it may be useful to state the reasons which induce us to think the popular feeling of the Colonies so much sounder than the judgment of the Assembly. The reasons which induce Englishmen, and especially official Englishmen, to prefer federation to segregation are, of course, upon the surface. British statesmen have for many years regarded the idea of coercing the free colonies as one which it is waste of power to take into political calculation. A contingency might arrive in which we should be compelled to blockade Melbourne, or occupy" Auckland, or batter down Cape Town ; but so might an earthquake occur, which would swallow up either place, and it is as useful to modify action by the one apprehension as the other. The idea of
coercion once abandoned, it becomes the interest of the mother- country, and especially of her statesmen, that neighbouring colonies should unite. Experience shows that it is far easier to deal with the government of a great " Dominion " than with a number of petty separated colonies. The great government is more experienced, less sensitive, less timid of small losses, and above all, less under the influence of local prepossessions. It is usually presided over by a stronger man, and always attracts men of larger capacity for affairs. Moreover, such a govern- ment relieves the home authorities of a multitude of local questions which are perpetually demanding settlement, which can only be settled easily on the spot, and which cannot be settled at all without a confidence which settlers only accord to a Parliament they help to elect and to control. The Colonial Office, therefore, apart from its desire that the Colonies should prosper, has a permanent, though not a direct, interest in their federation, while that of the Colonists themselves is of the most peremptory kind. They gain four immense advantages, of which three at least have a direct cash value. The first and most conspicuous of these is in finance. Every British colony intended to derive its prosperity from incoming settlers, finds itself compelled at first to mortgage part of its future. It needs public works, railroads, harbours, buildings, and grants for emigration, the money for which cannot be obtained on the spot, but must be secured through loans, and its facility in obtaining those loans is for years the measure of its prosperity. If it can borrow readily at 5 per cent., it can advance ; and if not, it can only stagnate. Now, the credit of a Dominion is to that of the Colonies which compose it like that of a great firm to that of many little shops. Not only does the Dominion possess larger resources, from her ability to tax more heavily, and from the apparent lightness of her debt as compared with her revenue, but she feels her responsibilities to her creditors much more ; she sees much more clearly the necessity of credit, and she is —partly for those reasons, and partly from her greater visibleness—much better regarded in the market. The Dominion of Canada could raise five millions at 5 per cent, where her constituent Colonies would have paid six for half the sum, and the Dominion of South Africa will be trusted where the Colonies would be refused supplies. It is not too much to say, for example, that a guarantee of 6 per cent. by the Cape upon £500,000 for a railway would, after English experience of Cape Railways, fail to draw the money, when a guarantee by the Dominion of 5 per cent, upon double the sum would be taken up at once. This advantage, which is universally • true—for New Zealand, an apparent exception, is a Dominion in itself—is of the utmost importance to the swiftness of progress in the Colonies, and is of itself worth all the expense of federation. The difference between a colony which can get money cheaply for paying enterprises and a colony which cannot, is the difference be- tween a merchant with credit and a merchant without it ; the one may be as rich as the other, but the former can do three- fold the profitable work. The advantage is felt even by the sections of the Dominion, and Nova Scotia can borrow money more readily because there is a Central Government than it could when it owed no obedience to anybody but Great Britain. Mississippi ruling itself would never have had a shilling, but Mississippi was supposed—erroneously, as far as her loans were concerned—to be in some way under the control of the United States.
The advantage in security is at least as great. Every State, however small, requires an army of some kind, but only a large State can keep up one of any efficiency. The cadres, the scientific services, and the staff cost too much. The ma- chinery for disciplining, leading, and supplying 5,000 men would, if adroitly used, manage 30,000, and the resulting cost to the small State destroys its nerve. A military force, more- over, with much police duty to perform, is always able to do more work than a small State can furnish, and while indispensable, is nevertheless half wasted. It is by wise distribution and rapid movement that the Indian Government, with its small force of white men, is able to garrison a continent which, if the Presiden- cies were States, would imperatively require at least five times the number. Moreover, a military force, however local, needs to be exempted from local influences, from the tendency to in- discipline and carelessness, and above all, from the spiritless- ness produced by the want of general reputation. No army of militia is so old, so well organised, or so willing as the Swiss, and yet the Government of Berne has been compelled since 1871 to destroy almost all its Cantonal peculiarities. More could be done at the Cape to insure safety with 10,000 men, organised under a trained and permanent body of officers, and supported by, say, six batteries of Royal Artillery, than by half the population disciplined and organised only as Volunteers. Security is, we need not tell the people of the Cape, for all men, money, and for them most especially ; for it is only when the Dominion is secure, and has attracted in its new form the attention of the world, that they can hope for a sufficient share of the great stream of emigration. A hundred thousand German colonists would do more for them in ten years than their local legislatures will in half a century, and a great Government in South Africa, able to give trustworthy promises of assignments of land, might attract them over. And finally, there is the gain which cannot be measured in money, —the new spirit among the people sure to follow the assump- tion of a new place in the world. The Colonies of South Africa are now a group of feeble dependencies in a distant sea, scarcely noticed by Europe, and believed by the majority of Englishmen to be of little value except to Missionaries and people who can enjoy a lion-hunt. The Dominion of South Africa will be a noteworthy State, the most powerful and most extensive south of the Equator, with a future which statesmen will strive to study and to promote, which great people will be will- ing to govern, and which will require and therefore breed states- men of the highest colonial class. Every political office, from the Premiership to a clerkship in the Assembly, will be of higher importance, and a new and national spirit will be imparted to public life. All careers will be larger, all paths broader, all objects of ambition higher ; and men who have been mere provincials vcill find before them many of the duties, and at least some of the rewards, offered by a truly national life. The Canadians have felt the full impulse of that change, and we do not see why it should leave the South-Africans un- affected. With financial ease, greater security from savage inroads, additional population, and wider careers all offered them for the asking, no wonder that the African Colonists repudiate the Assembly which in its silly petulance has ventured to snub the Minister who offered them such gifts.
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