d his baggage
and sailed from Bristol, Sir James Stephen going down there to see him
embark. Bristol, as he explained, was then endeavouring to establish
relations with the Cape and Australasia, which were coming into note.

'When I reached Cape Town,' Sir George pursued, 'they had just got their
first Parliament, but it was hardly in operation. Under the constitution
that had been granted, the Governor remained, to all purposes, the
paramount force in the country. His ministers had practically no power
over him, and thus everything was more or less in his hands. On urging
them, as I often did, to go in for a system under which the ministers
should be directly responsible to the people, not to the Governor, I
would be told, "Oh, we can always get rid of you, if you do anything
wrong, by an appeal to the Colonial Office." It was not until after I
left the Cape that popular government was brought into effect.

'What sort of South Africa did I find? The bulk of the whites were Boers,
who were most conservative in their ideas. There were no railways, and I
had great difficulty in making that innovation acceptable to the Boers.
Effort was requisite for the construction of harbours, a matter of
equally vital importance, which I took in hand. It was desirable to give
South Africa every possible element of a high civilisation, as, farther,
universities, schools, and libraries. A mixture of Saxon and Dutch, she
had to work out her destiny on her own lines, untrammelled by the Old
World. Also, she must enlighten that cloud of a barbarous Africa which
was pressing down from the north.

'How South Africa has changed since then! To illustrate that,
Bloemfontein was quite a small place in the far wilds. Nobody knew where
the capital of the freshly created Orange Free State was to be. No wonder
either, since, for a while, many of the people refused to accept the new
form of government, and would not vote for a President. They were angry,
at having been thrust forth from their heritage as British subjects. What
nation, they demanded, had the right so to treat a section of its people,
who had done nothing to disqualify themselves from citizenship?

'You have to remember that the movement for throwing over the Colonies,
was rising as an force active in England. They had come into being almost
unbidden; they were regarded with a cold interest. The notion that it
would be a good thing to lop them off altogether, was being accepted
among