TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SOUTH-AFRICAN PROSPECT.
WE should hardly have called Sir Stafford Northcote a sanguine politician, and yet we have as yet had no more sanguine politician,—no politician so sanguine,—in reference, at least, to the prospect of keeping down expenditure. And yet we should not, we say, have thought him sanguine, but for these little outbursts of rose-coloured hopes. In reckoning the yield of his various taxes, he has always been moderate, and usually as near the truth as it is given to human foresight to be. It is only when he comes to the delicate question of expenditure that he indulges himself with unreasonable hopes, and in this case we must say that it seems less because he is, in his own heart, sanguine, than because he finds it easier to excuse his hopefulness after it has been disappointed, than to find any tolerable means of at once providing the resources which in his inmost mind he expects ultimately to be com- pelled to provide. In April he assured us, that so far as he could judge, the surplus of £1,900,000, for which, without including the additional expense of the Zulu war, he had provided, would cover that additional expense. Since then nearly four months have elapsed, and now he discovers that he was mistaken, though as yet he hopes by only a little over a million,—for he hopes that three millions will cover what he formerly believed would be covered by £1,900,000. But though mistaken in his estimate by rather more than 50 per cent., he is as sanguine as ever, still. Indeed, his sanguineness now flows in a double stream. He is sanguine, first, that the ultimate expenditure will not exceed what he now calculates,—namely, about half-a-million, for finish- ing up, after the expenses to the end of July at the old rate are paid ; and even this is really sanguine, considering that we have as yet no substantial evidence that the war is at an end. But it is not half so sanguine as the next view which he ventures to broach in reference to the ultimate mode of providing the deficient balance. The exact sum which, if the estimates of revenue are fairly up to the mark, Sir Stafford Northcote will still want, in order to fulfil the expectations of his Budget speech, will be £1,163,000, and all this he hopes to recover from our South-African dependencies. We only hope he may succeed. But we must say a more youthful financial ex- pectation was never formed by Sir Stafford Northcote yet. For Sir Michael Hicks-Beach has only just been com- pelled to admit that he could not venture to throw on the Cape Colony the whole expense even of the comparatively insigni- ficant Transkei war. Indeed, if we understand aright Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's despatch of June 12th last, the Govern- ment propose "materially to lighten" the burden of a war in which the Imperial expenditure on behalf of the Cape has only been about £600,000. Doubtless, the Colonial Secretary intimates that he expects some valuable consideration for thus lightening that burden, and that what he looks for is " the acceptance by the Cape Colony of the respon- sibilities for the future which would devolve upon it as a member of a South-African Union,"—i.e., a cordial assent to the principle of confederation. Still, with an outstanding discussion as to how much of the expense of the Transkei war and the Gaika rebellion the Cape is to pay towards the re-imbursement of the military expenses incurred by us, it does seem to us a little too sanguine to hope that the Government may in a very short time receive £1,163,000 on account of its expenses for the Zulu war. If the Cape has been able justly to plead, as it has pleaded, " the very considerable exertions made by the colony " in the little Transkei and Gaika busi- nesses, "the great expense which it thereby incurred, the strenuous efforts which it has since made to supply the de- ficiencies of its defensive organisation," how much more power- ful pleas ad misericordiam of the same kind will the South- African Colonies make in reference to the great Zulu struggle That the Government can expect within any reasonable time to receive from the colony one-fourth—there, or thereabouts— of its own expenditure in this struggle, at a time when the South-African Colonies will have so many very special ex- penses of their own to bear, seems to us, we confess, Quixotic. It is undoubtedly most important to insist on the principle of repayment, and to press for as much as we can get. But to reckon upon receiving so much as this within a few months— and we understand that Sir Stafford Northcote, as he merely proposes to issue new Exchequer bonds to the amount of £1,200,000, must count on receiving the bulk of this sum
from the colony about the time that he or his successor may have to make provision for a new financial year—is surely credulous. Can he sincerely hope for such a result ? But, after all, this is a trivial matter to the Empire, though not to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As regards the main question, as to the well-being of the Empire,—the character of our prospects in South Africa depends on some- thing of very much more importance than the ultimate cost of the troops we have sent out, or the division of that cost be- tween the South-African Colonies and ourselves. And it is hardly possible for us to conceive that Sir Garnet Wolseley will have discharged his mission adequately unless, before he returns, the Government have the courage and the common- sense to supersede the present High Commissioner at the Cape by some less excitable Proconsul. The last despatch received from Sir Bartle Frere, the despatch dated June 18th, would be almost comic in its condescension,—ite sublime pity for the exigencies of the Government,—the forbear- ance with which it ventures to hope that, so soon as Sir Garnet has done his special work, Sir Bartle Frere may be permitted to resume that far higher work for which he was designed by Providence,—if it did not make us shudder at the prospect which he foreshadows. His magnificent trust " that the contemplated division of authority in native affairs may not be continued after the Zulus have been effectually subdued ;" his calm reiteration of the principle that " the supremacy of the British Crown, as representing civilised government, should be unquestionable in any native State surrounded, as the Zulus are, by British subjects and their allies ;" his grand didactic lecture to Sir Michael Beach, beginning "It is my duty to state to her Majesty's Government my strong conviction that, except as a tem- porary measure, adopted during stress of war, any division of supreme authority in South Africa is dangerous, as well as retrogressive ;" the sad dignity with which he points out that the new arrangements throw the whole question of confederation back ; and the rebuke which he administers to the Colonial Secretary for not telling him more exactly when Sir Garnet Wolseley would arrive,—all indicate a mind far too much wrapt up in its own preoccupations, to bring to the pre- sent difficult crisis of affairs anything like a fresh or cool judgment. The truth is, that the war in South Africa may now very reasonably be regarded as near its conclusion, if only Sir Garnet Wolseley could look for cordial support from the Cape. But the tone which Sir Bartle Frere takes is enough to convince, we hope, even the most bigoted of the " prancing, Proconsul's" admirers, that he not only regrets nothing, but that he is full of self-applause for all that ho has done, and would repeat every mistake he has made, to- morrow, if he were put in a position to do so. The pro- spect in South Africa would now be far less gloomy than it has been, were the High Commissioner at the Cape a sober man. But so far from being a sober man, he is showing more and more every day that he is a most dangerous man,—the fire- brand who lit this conflagration, and who will relight another as fierce, if he is allowed to do so, so soon as this has been extinguished in blood. The first and most essential remedy for our South-African troubles is the recall of Sir Bartle Frere.
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