The title of Sir David Harris's Pioneer, Soldier and Politician
(Sampson Low, 8s. 6d.) is rather more alluring than the contents justify. The author's pioneering mainly consisted in a rapid achievement of a good living as a diamond-broker in the early days of Kimberley, and with the diamond trade he remained intimately and prominently associated throughout his life. His soldiering was of the slightest. But as a politician he was very well known in the Cape Colony in that he repre- sented-both before and after the Union various constituencies in Griqualand West for thirty-two years, and he has thus been able to introduce into his book character-sketches of such leading political figures as Merriman, Jameson, Botha, Hertzog, Smuts and Rhodes. His estimation of the last that he " was one of the most grateful men in the world "will not command universal assent, or his assertion that at Kimberley " such a thing as a colour bar does not exist." Nor can one agree with General Smuts' appraisement in the foreword of the book that " here is the real stuff for history." This volume neither casts
any new light on nor makes any striking addition to South Africa's story, but as a contribution to a South African self- help series it could hardly have been surpassed, even by the late Dr. Samuel Smiles himself. * * * *
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