with a very narrow which is now open as far as or to within a hundred miles of the border is very poor and in common with the rest of south africa and indeed of the world has lately been passing through a period of great commercial depression the home government has refused to help it to its if it had done so how many hundreds of thousand pounds would have been saved to the british during the and wars and has equally refused to allow it to borrow sufficient money to get them constructed with the result that a large amount of the interior trade has already been into other channels and now a fresh and veiy real danger not only to but to introduction all imperial interests in south africa has sprang into sudden that is in this country for in africa it has been foreseen for many years above is situated which reaches to the southern shore of one of the finest in the world bay this great in which half a dozen could ride at anchor the only really good haven on the of south africa is fifty five miles in width and twenty in depth that is from east to west it is separated from the of which it is the natural port by about ninety miles of wild and inhabited country the of this splendid port was for many years in dispute between this country and the with whose of it connected by a strip of coast and who have a small fort upon it this dispute was finally referred by lord in to the decision of and on this occasion as on every other in which this country has been weak enough to go to that decision was given against us into the merits of the case it is not necessary to enter further than to say as has already been recently pointed out by a very able and well informed correspondent of the morning post that it is by no means clear by what right the matter was referred to at all the are in possession of the southern shore of the bay including i believe the and island and they are introduction an independent people the also on it and they are independent what warrant had we to refer their rights to the of the of the exercise of any over these countries is so shadowy that it may be said never to have existed certainly it does not exist now this is a point but it ib nothing more we must take things as we find them and we find that the have been formally declared and admitted by us to be the owners of bay now so long as we held the it did not so much matter who had the of the bay since a railway constructed from there could only run to british territory but we gave up the which is now a hostile state and the which has been so long foreseen in south africa and so blindly overlooked at home has come to pass � the railway is in course of rapid what does this mean to us at the best it means that we lose the greater part of the trade of south eastern africa at the worst that we lose it all in other words it means putting aside the question of our imperial needs and in africa a great many millions a year in hard cash out of the national pocket let us suppose that the worst happens and that the get a footing either in the or bay obviously they will stop our trade in favour of their own or let us introduction suppose that the takes advantage of one of our of imperial such as afflicted ns during the of lord and the provision in the which them to put a heavier tax upon our goods than upon those of any other nation in either event our case would be a bad one for our road from the eastern coast to the vast interior is blocked but it is of little use crying over milk or evils which it is our duty to try to and which in all probability still could be averted by a sound and consistent policy to begin with both and can be to the empire it is true that the independence of the first of these countries is by article xii of the of london of here is the exact � the independence of the within the boundary line of as indicated in the first article of this will be fully recognised but england has for years exercised a kind of right over � a right as i have already shown fully acknowledged and frequently appealed to by the themselves and for the rest what is the obvious meaning of this provision it means that the independence of is against its object was to protect the from at the hands of the further the have again and again broken this article of the in their repeated attempts to get a in it has now become necessary to our that the should come under our rule as indeed they are most anxious to do and a way should be found by which this end can be then as to or as it is sometimes called only a month or two ago an from the queen of that country waited on the office praying for british protection it is not known what answer they received let us trust that it was a favourable one the protection that should be accorded to the both in their interests and our own is to the british empire upon such terms as might be satisfactory to them the management of their country might be left to them subject to the advice of a and the of the ordinary laws respecting life and property common to states drink and white men might 