ent to
work-people. The duration of the gold-fields generally is uncertain, but
those of the Witwatersrand will last for at least half a century, and
will maintain for all that period an industrial population and a market
for commodities which, though small when measured by the standard of the
northern hemisphere, will be quite unique in Africa south of the
equator.

South Africa is, and will continue to be, a great grazing country; for
nearly all of its vast area is fit for live stock, though in large
regions the proportion of stock to the acre must remain small, owing to
the scarcity of feed. It will therefore continue to export wool, goats'
hair, and hides in large quantities, and may also export meat, and
possibly dairy products.

South Africa has been, is, and will probably continue to be for a good
while to come, a country in which only a very small part of the land is
tilled, and from which little agricultural produce, except fruit, sugar,
and perhaps tobacco, will be exported. Only two things seem likely to
increase its agricultural productiveness. One of these is the discovery
of some preservative against malarial fever which might enable the
lowlands of the east coast, from Durban northward, to be cultivated much
more largely than they are now. The other is the introduction of
irrigation on a large scale, an undertaking which at present would be
profitable in a few places only. Whether in future it will be worth
while to irrigate largely, and whether, if this be done, it will be done
by companies buying and working large farms or by companies distributing
water to small farmers, as the Government distributes water in Egypt and
some parts of India, are questions which may turn out to have an
important bearing on the development of the country, but which need not
be discussed now.

South Africa has not been, and shows no sign of becoming, a
manufacturing country. Water power is absent. Coal is not of the best
quality. Labour is neither cheap nor good. Even the imposition of a
pretty high protective tariff would not be likely to stimulate the
establishment of iron-works or foundries on a large scale, nor of
factories of textile goods, for the local market is too small to make
competition with Europe a profitable enterprise. In these respects, as
in many others, the conditions, physical and economic, differ so much
from those of the British North American or Australian Colonies that the
course of industrial de