nt. They had rebelled repeatedly against
their Dutch oppressors, and had gone through a brief Republican phase.
It is an example, therefore, of the thoughtless inconsequence of our old
colonial policy that we gave the French-Canadians, who were the least
desirous of it, the form, without the spirit, of representative
institutions, while we denied, until it was too late to avert racial
discord, even the form to the Cape Dutch. In truth, the Colony seems to
have been regarded purely in the light of a naval station, while the
British and Irish inflow of settlers, dating from about the year 1820,
contemporaneously with the advent of free settlers in Australia,
suggested the possibility of racial oppression by the Dutch majority.
Yet if there was little real reason to fear oppression by the French in
Canada, there was still less reason to fear such oppression in the Cape,
where Dutch ideals and civilization were far more similar to those of
the British. In America the absorption of the Dutch Colonies in the
seventeenth century had led to the peaceful fusion of both races, nor
was there any reason why, under wise rule, the same fusion should not
have occurred in South Africa. Until 1834 authority was purely military
and despotic. In that year was established a small Legislative Council
of officials and nominated members, with no representative element. In
1837 came the Great Trek.

No one disputes that the Dutch colonists had grievances, without the
means of redress. As usual, we find a land question in the shape of
enhanced rents charged by Government after the British occupation; the
Dutch language was excluded from official use, and English local
institutions were introduced with unnecessary abruptness; but the
principal grievance concerned the native tribes. Slavery existed in the
Colony, and its borders were continually threatened by these tribes. The
Dutch colonists were often terribly brutal to the natives; nevertheless
there is little doubt that a tactful and sympathetic policy could easily
have secured for them a more humane treatment, and the abolition of
slavery without economic dislocation. But a strong humanitarian
sentiment was sweeping over England at the time, including in its range
the negro slaves of Jamaica and the unconquered Kaffirs of South Africa,
but absolutely ignoring, let us note in passing, the economic serfdom of
the half-starved Irish peasantry at our very doors. Members of this
school took too l