The special correspondent of the Standard at Pretoria tele= graphs
to Wednesday's paper a very interesting report of Lord Miler's speech at the Inter-Colonial Council which was opened on Tuesday. In summing up the statistics and Estimates, Lord Milner said that they might be a few tens of thousands of pounds better or worse, but the general result, after the inter- Colonial services had been fully provided for, was that the Transvaal was paying its way, and the Orange River Colony had a substantial surplus. That was not glorious, but neither was it ignominious. He added :—" I should be the last to boast, and the- last to make invidious comparisons between our financial position and that of others, but when we observe that this is a bad year in the neighbouring Colony, that the- Cape looks forward to a deficit of between £700,000 and £800,000, while the United Kingdom has an assured deficit of 25,415,000, it does strike me that our financial troubles, over which so many crocodile tears have been shed, are nothing out of the common." We are delighted to hear this good news; but we are bound to say it is difficult to reconcile it with the statements made at the time the Chinese Labour Ordinance was before Parliament. Then we were assured that the financial position of the Transvaal was so embarrassed that nothing but the desperate remedy of introducing the Chinese into South Africa would avail to save it. As the Chinese have not yet landed, it cannot be they who have introduced the change. It certainly is a little bewildering. Whom, we wonder, does Lord Milner mean to indicate as the shedders of crocodile tears ?
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