As regards Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Cape Colony and Her Majesty's High Commissioner in South Africa, I shall say very little. Sir Hercules is an estimable gentleman, who would be in his proper place at home at his own fireside instead of being in the midst of all the toil and turmoil and worry and trouble attendant on his dual, inconsistent, and utterly irreconcilable position in South Africa. Sir Hercules has passed the age of three-score-and-ten years, and, I think I may say as a general rule that when men are getting on for the fourscore years mentioned by Solomon, they are much better by their own fireside than directing and controlling the affairs of the Empire. I was very much struck by a recent remark of Cardinal Vaughan in reference to some action of his great predecessor, the late Cardinal Manning. Cardinal Vaughan observed that he believed that as men advanced in years, towards and above fourscore, although there might be no falling off in the vigour of the intellectual faculties, or even physically, there nearly always was as regards judgment. This seemed to me, even in the light of one's own experience, a particularly true remark, and for this reason I must confess that, where possible, even in business matters, much less in affairs of State and momentous concerns, I like to see younger men with all their faculties about them at the helm exercising full control over the ship, having an accurate knowledge of rocks and shoals and currents and winds and meteorological

conditions generally, with their nerves perfect, their digestion unimpaired and their brain unclouded.

And now a few reflections in reference to a man, and a very estimable man, too, who has been much maligned in this country, and who has not had any opportunity of being heard in his own defence. I refer to Sir Jacobus De Wet, the British Agent in the Transvaal. Sir Jacobus has a Dutch name and is no doubt of Dutch descent, but the fact of his having a Dutch name is no reason why he should be termed "a Dutchman" by certain newspapers in this country, or that it should be insinuated right and left that the British Agent was nothing more nor less than a Boer spy. There probably never was any libel more gross than this, or more utterly devoid of any foundation and fact. As a matter of fact, Sir Jacobus is in feeling and sympathy a thorough Englishman, and my information leads me to believe that Her Majesty has no more loyal and zealous servant in South Africa than this gentleman. It seems to me that the utterly false ideas which have gained credence here respecting Sir Jacobus De Wet are entirely the outcome of the attacks levelled at him in certain journals. I must apologise to my readers for once more inflicting this subject upon them. It is, however, for the last time, and I purpose quoting here an extract from one of the "open letters," to which I have already referred, published in the Johannesburg Critic, and addressed to Sir Jacobus Do Wet. Here is the manner in which the writer addresses publicly Her Majesty's

representative in the Transvaal, in reference to some alleged dereliction of duty on Sir Jacobus' part, of which the writer constituted himself judge and censor.

"Surely if you had been doing your duty, even only in so far as transmitting information, these deliberate falsehoods would have been contradicted as soon as uttered? Were you sampling Mr Kruger's tobacco at the time-not the commando bag, be it understood-or were you passing the bottle with Messrs Leyds and Esselen, or, possibly, getting reliable information in General Joubert's back parlour from that doughty warrior's own lips? Upon my word, it looks like it. Altogether there seem too much Jacobus, and too little De Wet or de Wit about the whole business. I trust I am not wronging you, but you must pardon me if I am, for I can only judge from the evidence of facts. I find a British Commissioner in residence at Pretoria with obvious duties. I find also that the British settlers are treated worse and worse every year, until the last crowning indignity-an attempt on their personal libertyis even undertaken. I note that no improvement to their position seems possible until they are driven to take the law into their own hands. All the while our Resident continues on the very best possible terms with the oppressors of his own countrymen, the former, be it understood, being his own kith and kin.

"I believe you were chosen to fill the post you occupy for the very reason that you could patter

the taal and understood the bucolic peculiarities of the country so well that there was no danger of your offending susceptibilities like any raw Englishman might have done. If such be the case, I can only commend the wisdom of the selection from the Transvaal point of view. I do not think you have trodden on one single Burgher's corn or abraised the most prominent of Republican bunions. I believe that when the time comes for you to be relieved from your onerous position, every member of the dopper and reimschoen community will fetch out his private stocking to honour you with a public banquet, and I have no doubt whatever that if the Golden Eagle had not had its unfledged pinions prematurely extracted, after the Executive itself, you would have been the first recipient of this crowning honour.

"In conclusion, I can only say: 'Well done, good and faithful servant, you have succeeded for once in serving two masters.""

The English language, in my opinion, does not contain words sufficiently strong to characterise an attack such as this on a man, who, from his position, is precluded from replying to it as it deserves.

CHAPTER XVII

THE FUTURE OF THE TRANSVAAL

ANY book dealing even in a sketchy manner with the Transvaal and the Boers, cannot, even if it would, omit some consideration, however theoretical it is and must undoubtedly be, of the future of that country. That the future has many problems which must be solved, I cheerfully admit, and that the Government of the Transvaal will have many difficulties to encounter is not only probable but certain. In spite of temporary interruptions in the working of some of the mines and a decreased output for January 1896, in consequence of the disturbances, it is pretty well certain that the population of the Rand will steadily increase and that the immigrants will view, possibly with jealousy and certainly with disfavour, any prolongation of Boer rule. Of course the matter, the "grievance," I suppose, I had better term it, will not be put in this bald way. There has not been, and assuredly there will not be, any difficulty whatever in detailing any number of "grievances," and giving them that air of plausibility necessary to impress