According to the newspapers received this week from the Cape
of Good Hope, the Anglo-German Legion is destined to emigrate, if its members so please, and to be settled' down somewhere, probably on the borders of the Cape colony. It seems that Sir George Grey had followed out a " success- ful " suggestion which he made while Governor of New Zealand, and had proposed that a contingent of Chelsea Out-Pensioners should be sent to the Cape of Good Hope. The suggestion may be called "successful," but not from the New Zealand point of view. As to the settlers who were actually sent, we have heard little about them ; which implies that they have not proved a serious nuisance to the colonists, who would otherwise have exploded ; that they have not been miracles of prosperity, otherwise Sir George Grey's friends would have trum- peted his triumph. But the suggestion was successful in a per- sonal sense, since it identified Sir George Grey with a standing crotchet of his namesake Lord Grey, and was probably among the many reasons which contributed to the promotion of clever Sir George, although he left his New Zealand Government in hot- water, and his successors have reversed the spirit and letter of his policy.
There were other special reasons at the Cape why military, settlers might be more desired than they could be in New Zea- land. In former years, the Anglo-Dutch, who principally oc- cupied the remoter settlements, were in the habit of treating the savages that infest the border in a very summary manner. Un- der the influence of the philanthropic regime, the Anglo-Dutch farmer was placed in the mortifying position of seeing the Abori- ginal thieves driving away his herd, while his own hands were tied by prohibition of physical force, and his only resource was, as it were, to send for the policeman. Exasperated in that false position, the Anglo-Dutch rebelled, emigrated across the border, and established an independent republic. The English settlers have been compelled by their Government to try a succession of nostrums for the control of the natives,—the preaching plan ; the conjuring plan, after the model of Governor Smith and his walk- ing-stick ; and other devices, until at last it came to open war- fare. Recently, the independent Dutch settlers have inflicted severe chastisement upon marauding natives, to the great satis- faction of the British settlers who witnessed the castigation. It has at last been discovered that savages, who are almost entirely governed by physical force, cannot at present be brought to un- derstand any other kind of coercion or warning ; and hence both branches of tile Colonial Parliament welcome, with thanks and a vote of 40,0001., the proposal to send them the German Legion, in lieu of Sir George Grey's Chelsea Out-Pensioners. The votes on this occasion appear to have included the representatives of all parties. The colony seems bodily to have abandoned the Stocken- stroem policy, and to have adopted the policy of the Anglo- Dutch. Meanwhile, this welcome concession, supplying the colony with military settlers who can guard the frontier, presents a mode of disposing peaceably and philanthropically of that part of our war-baggage which consists of the Anglo-German Legion.
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