New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-01-28
ENGLAND AND SOUTH AFRICA.
ALECTURE BY MIR. FROUDE.

In tDe following letter from EulDDurgn an
occasional correspondent reports lecture re-
Gently delivered In that city by James An
thony Froude upon the past and present
relations between England and South Africa.
Mr. Froude disclaimed any party purpose, but
it is said that Mr.. Gladstone could not have
had any stronger ally in his Midlothian can
didacy.
OZARK AND DISHON0RABLE CONQUEST"
TIE LECTURER AND MS AUDIENcE-AN UGLY
ARRAY OF FACTS.
tFRoM AN OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT TIE TRTBUsE.l
EDINBUR RICH, JAM 1O.--Iast night James Anthony
FrOude gave the second OF two lectures upon South
Africa. in Queen Street Hall, Edinburgh. He had
yet he SAID, had an opportunity of describing
what took hlm 10 South Africa, or how he came to
be mixed up with Colonial politics. As long there
was hope that things out there would settle down.
he preferred 20 say nothing about it but as things
had not settled down, and were not in the way OF
settling be presumably felt more ut liberty TO speak,
and concluded to rise and explain upon the platform
of the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh. In
personal appearance Mr. Froude has altered little
since he visited New-York as the expounder OF Eng
lands policy toward Ireland. Possibly his face
shows little more plainly the lines of years and
thought but the dark, piercing eye has lost none of
its brliancy, the voice was pitched in the same
high key and retained in an almost unbroken mon
otone throughout, and manner and delivery dis
played the same mixture of energy aud imperturb-
ability that led many of his NewYork hearers to
think that he destroyed the effect of his eloquenee
by the tameness of his style.
However that NAV be. Mr.. Froude last night
pleased and impressed his audience-an audience
caring more for matter than manner. Professors
and counsellors, lawyers, artists and clergymen
were ranked beside and behind him on the plat
form, and in the body of the house were the mem
bers of the Institution, including many of the most
intellectual residents Of this intellectual city. Men
listened as if sitting upon a jury-some with eyes
closed that their minds might be concentrated upon
lecturers words, and evincing their mental wake
fulness by an occasional compression of the lips Ii
was Scotch audience of the best kind a1d that
means good deal. Few outbursts Of enthusiasm
either encouraged the lecturer broke the train Of
the hearers thought and only upon occasion
were the concluding words of a sentence lost in APP
plause. To speak of the audience at the same time
as unmpressionable would be a mistake. 1t was
only that 1t either restrained its feeling or
manifested 1t quietly.
Upon the whole. Mr. Gladstone could hardly have
bad better ally in his canddatuIe for the repre-
sentation of Midlothian. l do not say that Mr..
Froude meant to be the ex-PremiePs ally. In fact
II
himself to be affected by party politics. He said
that Great Britain is reaping tho harvest of
seventy years of Encouragement in South Africa.
in which Tory statesmen and Wing statesmen had
shared and in regard to which neither party could
throw stones at the other Mr. Froude, however,
happened to come, OPPORTUNITY. from the Liberal
point of view, and inasmuch as he exposed the
bungling of the present Administration he famed
the flame left so brilliantly burning by Mr.. Glad
stone. As an outsider / could not help noticing
that his exposition of the bunders Of the present
Government and of Sir Bartle Frere
ceived with warmth. while the limited praise be-
slowed upon Lord CarnaTyon. the Colonial Secre-
tary, was heard with comparative GOODNESS. Mr..
Froude came to Edinburgh upon an errand
the precise parallel of that which took
him to New-York. He went there with view TO
explaining the attitude of England toward Ireland,
and in the indictment brought against his own
country, as the world has since learned from his
published works the subject he spared no feeling
that might have led him 70 mitigate the harshncss
Of the truth. He came to Edinburgh to explain the
misdeeds of England in South Afnca. and certainly
he did not hesitate to strong language against
the statesmen who attempted TO govern country
@ 900 miles away without knowing or caring TO
know anything about it. We are" he said,
"treading step by step in the old course, and are
creating ex aetly and literally second Ireland in
South Africa" Edinburgh is q Liberal city. and
when his ordnance began TO play upon the Beacons-
field Government his hearers listened with satis-
faction which even the desire to hear the unadorned
truth upon long debated question could not quite
conceal.
Mr.. Froude gave his audience clear view Of the
history of British action in South Africa from its
sequisition by conquest down to the present time
1t was essentially Dutch settlement; Dutch in its
laws its language and by right of prior occupation
lie had been himsefa guest in a Dutch house in the
interior that built nearly 200 years ago. The
English simply took possession at the time of the
French Revolution, nominaly TO prevent the Cape
from falling into the hands Of the French but hay-
ing once got into place which they found conven-
lent, the remarkable conscience" of tho English
people allowed them to stay there. They had
swallowed more territory than all the other nations
put together but they only did 1t for the good of
mankindl OF course the Dutch rebelled but the
rebellion was crushed; some OF the participants
were hanged. and the foundation was laid of the
feeling of irritation entertained by the Beers
toward the English down to the present
day. The feeling deepened by I'M
fair treatment in 1888 regarding the compensation
due the Dutch settlers upon the abolition Of slavery.
and by the suspension of labor law under which
the Hottentots were restrained from vagrancy and
compelled to work. Many Of the Beers were so dis
gusted that they left their homes in the Cape Colony
and, crossing the Orange River. founded two new
States the Orange Free state and the Transvaal.
and ultimately conquered the Zuus and acquired
Natal. Things were in this position in 1S49 The
Dutch were in possession of new country stretch
ing down to the sea. and isolating the Cape Colony
from the tribes of the interior. The Kaffrs having
the Dutch on aide and the British on the other,
would have given no trouble. and" said the lee
turer. eve should be happy If we could now replace
South Africa in the position in which it thus adj
justed itself" But. Natal being accessible from the
sea. the British took Natal became neighbors of the
L Al. IIoffh In Roara rhau