The news from the Cape is not pleasing. The Zulu
King re- fuses altogether to make up the quarrel forced on him by the Transvaal Republic, and declares that he and his 50,000 warriors will destroy President Burgers and all his people. He has even returned a letter from Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the British agent for native affairs, unopened ; and though this may be an accident, it more probably indicates a determination to go his own way. President Burgers, on his side, will not give way, and seems to have regained his influence over his countrymen. Should the Zulu King succeed, the British Government must -intervene strongly, first, because the Dutch in our own dominion will not hear of any other course ; and secondly, because the dark people, elate with victory over the white Dutch, will think they can also dictate to the white English. The Government may have a Cape war on its hands at any moment, and a Cape war is, of all nuisances which
afflict a British Administration, the greatest. It demands many troops and great expenditure, and produces in return absolutely nothing.
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