BRITISH ZAMBESLLAND.
ON Tuesday, the Privy Council recommended that a charter should. be granted authorising the British South Africa Company to develop, administer, and govern that portion of South Africa which lies between the Central and Lower Zambesi on the north, and the frontier of the Transvaal on the south,—a region that has for some time past been declared to be within the sphere of British influence. Though we adhere to the opinion expressed by us last year as to the wisdom of granting these enormous concessions, we cannot but admit that on the present occasion the action of the Ministry has been natural and reasonable enough. The danger is, that the process of handing over to a Company the work of acquiring territory on behalf of England. is so easy, that by its means the country may incur responsibilities which it would never have entered upon if it had been obliged to annex under the old system of sending out its own officers and organising a regular Government. Under the system of gaining new Colonies through chartered Companies, we run the risk of getting involved in serious complications without knowing it. A governing Company can no more retreat than the nation itself ; and its troubles and diffi- culties, the moment they are large enough, become matters of national concern. In a word, if the system is persisted in, we may some day find. ourselves in the position of a capitalist who has given standing orders to ten or twelve agents to buy him land without accurately counting the cost. Ultimately he finds himself saddled with an estate so scat- tered and so unwieldy, that it breaks his heart to manage it. We have now got four great Companies at work, one in Asia and three in Africa,—the North Borneo Com- pany, the Royal Niger Company, the East Africa Com- pany, and the new Association on the Zambesi. If, by a piece of ill-luck, all of them, or, indeed, if three out of the four got into difficulties at once, the House of Commons might have to vote troops in thousands for places it had never heard of, and in regard to which it would be extremely loth to believe it had any responsibility. It must be admitted, however, that in the field of the newest Company's operations, no fresh responsibilities have as yet been incurred, for already we stand committed to a formal protectorate over the greater part of the area conceded. Even if the Company had not been formed, we should have been bound in some form or other to have assumed a position of sovereignty. As Mr. Bryce shows in his "American Commonwealth," the embryo of our earliest Colonial Constitutions is to be found in the charter of a Trading Company. If, then, a time ever arrives when the white settlers in Zambesiland—this seems destined to be the name of our latest possession—demand self-government, we shall only be following historical precedents in yielding to their request. The charter which has just been granted to the British South Africa Company, though far more complex and restricted in detail, may, on the whole, be said to confer somewhat similar rights to those enjoyed by the old East India Company. Speaking in general terms, the Directors who are named in the charter, and who will constitute the "body politic and cor- porate "—the Duke of Abercorn, the Duke of Fife, Lord Gifford, Mr. Rhodes, Mr. Beit, Mr. Albert Grey, and Mr. George Cawston—will enjoy sovereign rights over the territories ceded to them, though those rights in regard to matters of special importance will only be able to be exer- cised with the approval of the Colonial Secretary. Among the restrictions, it may be mentioned that the directorate must be exclusively British in composition and domicile, and that the Duke of Abercorn, the Duke of Fife, and Mr. Albert Grey are under any circumstances to remain Directors. Provision is also made that the Company shall not acquire by prescription rights which at some future time it might be difficult or costly to extinguish. The present charter is only to last for twenty-five years. At the end of that time, and of every succeeding ten years, the Crown may revise or repeal so much of the charter as relates to administrative and public affairs as it may think fit. Further, the Crown can at any time revoke the charter if the Company acts illegally, or in any way misbehaves itself. In reality, Mr. Rhodes will be the moving spirit of the Company. In his extraordinarily successful career—he went out to South Africa in search of health immediately after leaving college, and found not only health, but a fortune which in America would have gained him the title of a Diamond King—Mr. Rhodes has gained an experience which will be invaluable to the " Adventurers " of the Company, and will enable them to play with a good chance of success their difficult double role of king and merchant. The boundaries of the Company's territory are not very accurately laid down in the charter, in order, doubtless, to allow for expansion. Practically they include, to start with, only the region between the course of the Upper Zambesi on the north, and the frontiers of the Transvaal and the Bechuanaland Crown Colony on the south. On the east, their domain is bordered by the strip of Portuguese territory, which in theory stretches inland for a somewhat indefinite distance, but in practice is confined to the fringe of coast. On the west, the division between the Company's posses- sions and Germany's West African Colonies may be placed at the twentieth degree of east longitude. In other words, the area marked out for the operations of the Company's grant of sovereignty includes the British Protectorate of Bechuanaland, the whole of Khama's country, and the whole of Matabeleland,—a region comprising in all about 400,000 square miles. That is, the Company possesses a country more than three times as big as the United Kingdom, and nearly twice as big as the German Empire. It must be remembered, however, that a certain amount of land must
be deducted from this imposing total, as either desert, un- healthy, waterless, or infested by the tsetse, the fly whose sting kills cattle as a cobra kills mankind. Still, after making these deductions, the part which remains over, and is fit not only for habitation by Europeans, but for colonisation— that is, for the rearing of European children—is very large. Almost the whole of Matabeleland is fitted for • permanent occupation by Anglo-Saxon settlers. To begin with, a great deal of it is table-land 5,000 ft. above the sea-level, which in those latitudes means an almost ideal climate,—cool, clear, dry, and invigorating. Through it flow rivers with plenty of water. Cattle, corn, and wood abound, and gold, copper, iron, and other minerals are to be found in large quantities. So fertile is the soil, that coffee, corn, and mealies can be grown year after year in the same ground without manure and without ploughing, the merest scratching of the surface being enough to secure a heavy crop. So much for the highlands, which, besides the advantages just enumerated, are well supplied with elephants and all sorts of game. In the valleys by which they are intersected, rice, sugar, cotton, and other semi-tropical crops can be raised in plenty. That the future of such a country will be a bright one, it is impossible to doubt. All that is necessary is to make it easy of access. At present, the petty jealousies of the Portuguese and the Transvaal Boers has prevented a rapid development of railway communication between the coast and the interior. Such a policy of obstruc- tion cannot, however, last long. Within a very few years, British influence will either directly or indirectly dominate the Transvaal, while Portugal will have to learn that there is a limit even to the tyranny of weakness. Meantime, the Zambesi, which is an international water- way, will give access to the northern portion of Matabele- land by steamer ; while the railway which is being pushed up from the south will greatly facilitate the work of settle- ment. Already the lines are laid to Kimberley, and thence they will have to be brought to Shoshong, a spot on the Company's territory, and distant about four hundred miles from the present terminus. That this work will be undertaken at once is a matter of certainty, while we do not doubt that before a quarter of the Company's twenty- five years has run out, the railway will actually reach to- the Zambesi.
Though, on the whole, we take anything but a gloomy view a the Company's prospects, we must not forget that the fairest portion of their territory is now pos- sessed by a powerful and warlike tribe who number in all some 200,000, and whose fighting force is well organised on the Zulu model, and consists of 15,000 soldiers. The Company will treat the natives carefully and with kind- ness; but that cannot prevent the struggle which must always take place before a fighting race is finally compelled to adapt itself to the benevolent despotism of the white man. No doubt wisdom and prudence may avert the hour of contest till half its dangers have been eliminated ; but in some shape or other, however, it is sure to come, and when it does, the British South African Company will want good officers in Matabeleland and a determined directorate at home. Of course the Company will win in the end, but whether they may not first need aid either from home or from the Cape, remains to be seen. If they do, the taxpayer will, we suppose, abandon for the time the Company system of increasing the Empire,—in all probability, however, only to adopt some equally thin disguise for rapidly and light-heartedly annexing the unappropriated portions of the globe.
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