THE DANGER IN SOUTH AFRICA.
NOTHING can be more annoying than the news from the Cape, but there is an obvious tendency to panic in some of the accounts received which should be steadily resisted. The President of the Transvaal Republic, Mr. Burgers, in pursu- ance of his policy of fighting his way to the sea has un- doubtedly given great and just irritation to the " king " of the Zulus, Cetawayo who controls, it is believed, 50,000 warriors, fairly armed, though probably imperfectly supplied with materiel of war. Emboldened by the defeat of the Boers in several skirmishes, the King now threatens to invade the Transvaal Republic, and it is asserted on the spot that the means of resistance are quite inadequate. Cetawayo, it is assumed, will sweep over the Transvaal, will extirpate the Dutch popula- tion, and then, elated with victory, will turn his arms against the English, and destroy the colony of Natal. The British Government, therefore, is importuned to support President Burgers, and to raise the force in Natal to an amount suffi- cient for a dangerous war. All this is exceedingly annoying. The British Government has no troops to spare just now, it has no need of more territory in South Africa, and it is by no means satisfied that a new war will tend to facilitate the formation of that South-African Confederation which becomes daily more visibly expedient. If the Zulus are completely beaten, the Colonists will think that Federation may be postponed ; and if the Zulus are merely driven back, the Colonists will see that they are fully protected without any considerable effort of their own, and at the expense of British instead of South-African taxpayers. Colonists are by no means more selfish than other men, but they are apt to 'feel, like other children, that the parent's purse is bottomless, and that it cannot be opened for better purposes than to supply their needs or increase their enjoyments. The demand, therefore, for troops is very energetic, and the Government, if Cetawayo takes the field, may be compelled to organise a small army in Natal of men whom it wants for other service in India, the Mauritius, and the Cape itself. The Federation is not yet formed, no adequate body of armed native constabulary is yet in existence, and it is by no means certain if the Boers are beaten that the friendly native tribes will turn out at our call. As in India, Malaya, China, and everywhere else, therefore, the real work must be done by the Queen's soldiers,—the working body whose merits, as in India on a recant occasion, are so often overlooked, and who sometimes appear to harassed officials to be as scarce as diamonds.
It is very annoying, but there is no help. Her Majesty's Colonies must be protected till they can be induced to protect themselves, but we would deprecate anything like unnecessary alarm. It is not quite so certain as people think that the Transvaal will be overrun in a minute. The Republicans of late have not fought well—indeed, the Dutch everywhere seem to be momentarily deprived of energy—and they have not been successful ; but they are Dutchmen, Englishmen, and Germans, and if they are driven to the wall, we may rely on their displaying the hardihood they have always shown in their encounters with native tribes. Cetawayo has a great many men, and they have a great many rifles, but the disproportion between his numbers and those of the Boers is not so great as that which existed in 1857 between the English and the Indian mutineers ; and his men, if perhaps braver than the Sepoys, are not so well organised or nearly so wall supplied. Neither the Boers nor the English could live in South Africa at all, if numbers mattered so much. It may be expedient, and will certainly be humane, to assist the Boers, but it is no part of our business to do their work for them ; and if they will not turn out en mane, and recognise English orders too, they must just take the consequences of their own ambitious policy, and habitual disregard of native claims to justice and forbear- ance. If they want English aid, in fact, they must agree to English terms, as far as the natives are concerned, and under such agreement the war ought not to be very serious. Cetawayo cannot conquer both nations, and if fairly treated is very un-
likely to try. The Colonists have an idea that if he moves all the dark races may rise at once, and sweep the English into the sea ; and of course they may do it, but so may the people of India, or the Chinese, or the Singhalese, or the labourers of the Mauritius. The danger is permanent, and common to every dependency we possess in which dark races form the majority ; but it never occurs, and if we will but
do justice, never will occur. The plain fact is that these races never unite except to resist ill -treatment, and not always then, and the English, being restrained by opinion, do not, except under the influence of panic or misapprehension, seriously ill-treat them. Only despair gives them the necessary vigour to face the whites through a long campaign, and the Colonial Office gives them no cause for despair. The special misfortune of the position in South Africa is that we may be implicated by the conduct of a Government which we do not control ; but then we can make control the condition of assistance, and the control granted, it must be possible, without excessive exertions, either to avert a war or to bring it to a speedy termination. Two thousand additional troops ought to be sent to Natal, but with that reinforcement there should be no ground for apprehensions of massacre, or even of defeat. It is a worry—a serious worry, we admit—rather than a grand danger, which we have to encounter in Natal, and a little patience, forbearance, and resolution will be as valuable as energy.
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