' The Union of South Africa was proclaimed at Pretoria
on Tuesday. There was a special service in the Cathedral, and at a ceremony in the Legislative Assembly Lord Gladstone, the Governor-General, and the members of the new Govern- ment were sworn in. This important and memorable event took place exactly eight years to the day after the conclusion of the war, and General Botha, who in the Treaty of -Vereeniging signed away the independent existence of the -Dutch Republics, is now Prime Minister of United South Africa. It is a wonderful culmination to the distractions of South Africa, and the whole history of the British Empire Las nothing more gratifying to show. It was hoped that a -non-party Ministry might be formed to give the Union a good start, but this was found impossible, and for our own part ,we would rather run whatever risks there may be in the
preservation of the old distinctions than see an insincere coalition in power which could command no respect or con- fidence. A non-party Government was an agreeable ideal, but it would have been useless to try to create artificially what did not come naturally.
