ed to form his own council, and that in selecting the
members of it he should go round the colony, observe the farms where the
land was well inclosed, the fields clean, the farm buildings substantial
and in good repair; that he should call on the owners of these to be his
advisers and assistants. In all Natal he might find a dozen such. They
would be unwilling to leave their own business for so thankless a
purpose; but they might be induced by good feeling to grant him a few
weeks of their time. Under such an administration I imagine Natal would
have a happier future before it than it will experience with the boon
which is designed for it.

In the West Indies there is indefinite wealth waiting to be developed by
intelligence and capital; and men with such resources, both English and
American, might be tempted still to settle there, and lead the blacks
along with them into more settled manners and higher forms of
civilisation. But the future of the blacks, and our own influence over
them for good, depend on their being protected from themselves and from
the schemers who would take advantage of them. However little may be the
share to which the mass of a population be admitted in the government of
their country, they are never found hard to manage where they prosper
and are justly dealt with. The children of darkness are even easier of
control than the children of light. Under an administration formed on
the model of that of our Eastern Empire these islands would be peopled
in a generation or two with dusky citizens, as proud as the rest of us
of the flag under which they will have thriven, and as willing to defend
it against any invading enemy as they are now unquestionably
indifferent. Partially elected councils, local elected boards, &c.,
serve only as contrivances to foster discontent and encourage jobbery.
They open a rift which time will widen, and which will create for us, on
a smaller scale, the conditions which have so troubled us in Ireland,
where each concession of popular demands makes the maintenance of the
connection more difficult. In the Pacific colonies self-government is a
natural right; the colonists are part of ourselves, and have as complete
a claim to the management of their own affairs as we have to the
management of ours. The less we interfere with them the more heartily
they identify themselves with us. But if we choose besides to indulge
our ambition with an empire, if we determine to keep attache