The conduct of the Cape Government is the more lamentable,
because the Basutos have shown a special aptitude for civilisa- tion. Mr. T. W. Irvine, who knows them, even states that, although utterly ruined by their conflict with the Orange Free State in 1866, so ruined as to be without sufficient food, they are now the wealthiest tribe in South Africa. They have adopted European clothes, exchanged the hoe for the plough, built cottages for themselves instead of huts, and cut roads through their territory to Maseru, the seat of government. The revenue has increased to £20,433 from only £3,000 in 1867, and the chiefs dwell in stone or brick houses, with carpeted floors and papered walls. These people are now to be harried, and their villages destroyed, because the Cape Colonists think that if they retained their arms, they might, at some time or another, become hostile to the whites. The disarmament is opposed by the European magistracy and the French missionaries.
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