The Times gives the honour of large type to a
letter on South African politics which is unsigned, but is evidently written by an experienced observer. He says that the coming Election at the Cape is of first-rate importance. Mr. Hofmeyr has re-established the race division of parties, with the intention that South .Africa shall ultimately be Dutch, or, at all events, governed by Afrikanders in independence of Great Britain. If the Dutch win the Election, and are able to pardon and compensate all rebels in Cape Colony, their kinsfolk in the Transvaal and Orange Free State will accept their lead, and the whole work of conquest will have to be done over again. He hopes that this is improbable, but is evidently doubtful whether the British settlers who intend to remain may not be tempted to make common cause with the Dutch. We fancy he exaggerates the bitterness of Dutch feeling ; but it is true that the two races regard the native question from very different standpoints, and it is at all events well not to confine our record to the pleasanter symptoms. The correspondent is quite savage at British optimism, and does not see that an incapacity to expect defeat is often a source of strength. In the earlier days of the Indian Mutiny, when we ought by all rules to have been beaten, it was the stolid undoubtingness of the British, their incapacity even to think of compromise, which saved the Empire.
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