The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-05-14


 THE SOUTH AFRICAN SITUATION.
 At the close of a stay of twelve months in South Africa, during which time I have seen the country at it's most interesting crisis and have not only visited the Transvaal, but tra- versed the length of Rhodesia and trav- eled through the Cape Colony, the na- tive territories, Natal and the Portu- guese possessions round Delagoa Bay it may be permitted me to summarize the most valuable opinions I heard ex- pressed and the most important impress sions made upon me, so as to form some estimate of the position as it now stands.
 As a seething mass of unassimilated elements it would be hard to equal the South Africa of the present day. From the Zambesi to Cape Colony there is un- rest Nowhere does there appear CO., herency, unity or security. and what chance there was of the various antago- nistic clements slowly settling down has been incidentally thrown back by the raid, the full results of which are only now being duly realized. So that to- day South Africa is more unsettled than 1t was even at the beginning of last year.
 The British settlers believe the pre- posterously heavy arming of the Boers means that they intend to assume the offensive. The Transvaal suspects that an attack is about to be made upon it.. The Boers, and especially their presi- dent, regard MT. Rhodes as their impla- cable enemy. They believe that the British people and British government in heart support him; and they require no pressing to obey MT. Kruger's re- gently expressed injunction to Prepare for war"
 The sister Dutch republic of the Or ange Free State would like to hold aloof from any disturbances, but feels that this may be impossible. It fears that if the Transvaal lost It's independence, it's own independence would soon go likewise So the Free State joins with the Transvaal in it's preparation for war.
 Whatever tends towards a conflict be- tween the Dutch and the British in the republics tends to division in the Cape Colony and Natal, with their white pop ulation half British and half Dutch: and in the former colony especially there is a marked accentuation of that racial feeling which for some years yet must inevitably exist. The Cape Dutch sympathized with the Uttlanders in their grievances, but the supposed at tack upon the independence of the Transvaal reused all their national sympathy with men of their own blood; and the feeling among perhaps the ma- jority of them Is that, if any unpro- oked attack were now made, they would have to join their compatriots in struggle against British interference.
 Again, dissension between the two great divisions of the white population of South Africa necessarily tends to cause unrest among the more numerous black population held in subjection by the whites. And the restless feeling en- gendered among the natives by the di- visions between the Dutch and English has been increased by the appearance of that terrible disease which is cutting off the one great source of wealth to the blacks. So that on leaving Rhodesia, where rebellion had only just been stamped out, at the first town in Cape Colony I entered I found the people hastily rushing to arms in expectation of native rising, and a punitive expe- dlsion is now acting against the chiefs