Lord Salisbury made a good, but useless speech on Friday
week about Cape affairs. We are governing the South African colonies on a bad system, they being Crown colonies, yet ruled by elected Legislatures which cannot remove the Ministry. Lord Kimberley wants them to accept responsible government, but the colonists do' not like the expense; and Lord Salisbury does not like the electors, who, he says, the majority of them being natives, are not fit for self- government. All that is true, but if we re-establish direct• government we must pay, and run the risk of insurrection besides. We must go forward on the course fixed by the House of Commons, and trust to the capacity of the Anglo-Saxon for getting the better of any other people he may live with. The real diffi- culty is to prevent his getting the better too absolutely, and de- creeing, as he is doing in Griqualand, that a native found in possession of a diamond shall be held to have stolen it, and be flogged accordingly. The ideal system for the Cape would be a federation of elected Legislatures, under a Viceroy with a veto, and certain rights over natives, but Englishmen never adopt ideal systems.
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