In the " Story of the Empire Series " (Horace
Marshall and Son) we have to notice The Story of Canada, by Howard A. Kennedy, and The Story of South Africa, by W. Basil Worsfold. Both these are striking little books. In the first the story of the " Martyrs," the intrepid French Jesuits who endured tortures and death in their missionary zeal, the tale of the British conquest, and of the Hudson's Bay Company, may be specified. The second deals in part with less familiar topics. The history of the Cape Colony up to the beginning of the British rule is full of curious significance. The Boers have come to be what they are by one of the strangest processes that a white population ever went through. Mr. Worsfold holds very strong opinions as to their capacity, Or want of capacity for civilisation. It is satisfactory to see that he holds opinions equally strong as to the general character of British rule. He writes :—" To the honour of England it stands written on the page of history that from the first assumption of the government of the Cape of Good Hope, she has resolutely set herself the task of meting out justice between the conflicting claims of the Colonists and the Natives ; that by assuming this attitude she rendered her government unacceptable to the mass of the original European inhabitants; but that in the face of the difficulties and the bitter opposition thus created, she again and again compelled the moat stubborn of these European offenders to do justice to the coloured races whose champion and protector she was."
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