Little has happened beyond the four seas to need note
here; for the progress of events in Spain, still apparently setting against ri
ESPARTERO, has not materially changed. But two notable steps have been made in England's colonization. Natal, the asylum sought by the refractory Anglo-Dutch farmers who left the Cape colony, has been absorbed into the British ter- ritory. This step ought to have been taken long ago ; for the "punctilio which affected to regard lands beyond the immediate bounds of the English settlements as a kind of foreign territories, tantalized the Anglo-Dutch farmers, a bold and intelligent but im- perfectly-taught class, with a seeming opportunity of evading Bri- tish authority. To bring them back man by man, would have been a hopeless task ; to devise some special method of exercising British law beyond the ordinary stretch of British authority, equally foolish and mischievous; but at once to extend full British rule over a good territory, already colonized by enterprising men, re- moves every difficulty, if—and it is an important "if"—means be taken to convince the Anglo-Dutch that renewed submission to British rule will not be submission to renewed injustice and slight ; and if means be taken to establish a proper system for the disposal of waste lands. The Cape colony languishes under the effects of bad systems ; and radical improvement is put off on the plea that the matter is too far gone and too complicated for amendment now. At Natal nothing has been done. The other step is the founding of a fresh settlement in New Zealand—" New Edinburgh"; a settlement of colonists from Scot- land, headed by a Scotchman, Mr. GEORGE RENNIE, the son of a famous Scotch agriculturist ; and comprising among its original in- stitutions provision for religious worship and education after the Scotch manner. It is not an exclusive colony, but " special "- others than the Scotch are not excluded; but its attractions will be of a kind specially to draw Scotchmen to it. The first body of colonists expect to set out in the autumn : so that, even in these dull times, the British colonization of New Zealand proceeds with some vigour.
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