23 JUNE 1906, Page 2

At the annual meeting of the Imperial South Africa Association

on Friday week at Grosvenor House a resolution was moved by Sir Gilbert Parker that the £3,000,000 set aside out of the guaranteed loan for the purposes of land settlement in the new Colonies should, as the instalments were repaid, be reinvested in perpetuity for the work of settlement. It is a proposal with which we cordially agree, and we are grateful to Sir John Dickson-Poynder, Lord Lovat, and others for the way in which they have kept this, the least disputable of South African policies, before the British public. We should like to see a part of• the so-called war contribution of £30,000,000, which Mr. Chamberlain in an ill-omened moment tried to fasten on the Transvaal, raised by the new Colonies, and employed, not as a kind of tribute to the Mother-country, but in placing British settlers on the • soil of the Colony. We are well aware of the obstacles in the way. South Africa is not Canada, and the settlers require special capital and special assistance ; but these difficulties do not

lessen the tremendous importance of preventing the differ. ence between town and country being synonymous with the distinction between Dutch and British.