The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-14 00:00:00

CIVILISATION IN SOUTH AFRICA.

The Natal Mercury, speaking of the civilising
processes going on in South Africa, asks whether it
can be accepted as proved that civilisation,
in the common acceptance of the phrase, is
beneficial to savage races. The Natal Mercury
seems to think not. It points out the fact that
under the wasting influences of civilisation the Red
Indians, the Maories, and the Tasmanians are fast
disappearing. from the muster roll of mankind. Go-
vernment has tried the forcing process, but has
it succeeded ? True the natives have learnt to
use the cotton fabrics and blanketing of the
white man, to consume several articles of European
food, such as treacle, salt, and meal, have
learnt to shoot and drive, while in
service among the whites they have acquired
aptitudes for work which would have astonished
their most primitive fathers. But it is a melan-
choly fact, says our colonial contemporary, that
among other requirements which may be looked upon
as the out-growth of civilisation a spirit
of greater insolence and independence must be
numbered. Under all the circumstances the
Natal Mercury thinks the best way to insure the
peaceful advancement or social acquirements of the
natives is to govern them firmly and justly, and to
encourage their political disintegration as a people.

THE NEW EGYPTIAN LOAN.

The Pall 3fall Gazette has an article on the new
Egyptian Loan. But the other day, it says, Egyptian
stockholders were scandalised and alarmed at the
prospect of such a thing, congratulating themselves
on the action of the Sultan in his novel character of
financial jurist, and on the prospect of the enforce-
ment of the strongest provisions that limited
the borrowing proclivities of the Khedive.
How anyone, it adds, acquainted with
Egypt should have entertained the fond
delusion that that country and its ruler were to
live henceforth on their respective incomes, it is
difficult to explain. Among potentates, the article
observes, the Khedive occupies an exceptional,
and in some respects a very enviable position.
Like his predecessors, the Pharoahs, he is not only
the Prince, but the possessor of Egypt. Technically
and Practically his rights of property may be said to
be unlimited. He is actually in occupation of an enor-
mous area of the best land of his kingdom, is a
sugar planter, a cotton-grower, grows hemp, and
tobacco, and is continually making, experiments in
acclimatising new productions. With such a pro-
perty he is in a position to borrow on
his own account. The Pasha presents himself
as a borrower in a private capacity, and wrainst such
the PO .hall Gazelle thinks the Sultan powerless.

PRESIDENT LOPEZ.

The end of the war in South America Las fre-
quently ben announced ; time after time has Lopez
E'er ea utLr and irretrievable defeat, and has yet
sp.un- , up apin with fre,h life ; but if the
lat,-stitkm of intellig(.ne be correct, there can be no
that the ei,d has come at la t. The sole
origin and support of the war, Lopez himself,
has metwith death fighting at the head of his last hand-
ful oh troops. '1 he dictator, however atrocious may be
his had qualities, has fought it out to the last. lie lost
Humalta, Asuncion, and numerous less important
stations in which he entrenched himself one by one, and
zst.length, after wandering about the mountains, at-