A Renter's telegram from Kimberley received on Tuesday gives an
account of an interesting speech delivered by Mr. Cecil Rhodes, the Cape Premier, at a banquet given him on his return from his Parliamentary duties. His Government, he said, would do all in their power to draw closer the ties between the Cape and the neighbouring States. " It was customary to speak of a United South Africa as being in the near future. If they meant complete union with the same flag, he saw very serious difficulties. When he spoke of a South African Union, he meant that they might attain to perfect Free-trade as regards their own commodities, a perfect and complete railway communication, and a general Customs Union stretching from Delagoa Bay to Walfish Bay ; and if their statesmen should attain to that, they would have done a good work, and they would have each State trusting to its own flag and having respect for each other's flag. The question of flag might be settled in the future ; but if it was not, and they obtained the points mentioned, they might be well satisfied, and call that a Union of South Africa." These words show clearly that Mr. Rhodes is one of those statesmen who look to the substance and not to the form in political arrangements. The Cape Parlia- ment, he went on to say, had given the Chartered Company every assistance, and he felt sure that within his lifetime Cape Colony would be stretched to the Zambesi. " It was an in- teresting fact for him that he should that day have received from the chief of the Barotse a cession of territory on behalf of the Chartered Company comprising 225,000 square miles north of the Zambesi." A United South Africa is certainly to be desired. That obtained, we could give the Colonists the complete control of their own back-lands, just as we have given them to Canada.
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