adherence to the national system of education inaugurated by Lord Milner, and has thereby shown its independence of the reactionary influence of the ministers of religion.

The power, therefore, of the Boer leaders must tend to diminish not only because, ceasing to be national heroes on the shelf, they have assumed the responsibilities of government, but because the education of the children will bring on the scene a rising generation who will have more independent views of their own interests.

It is a characteristic common to farmers to put material interests before high-flown enthusiasms. The Dutch are no exceptions to that rule. They are a clever people, but both in the Transvaal and in the Orange River Colony they are, as regards civilisation, quite a century behind the British. It is their interest to learn from the newcomers, and in nothing has this been brought home to them more forcibly than in the recent work of the departments of agriculture. The increase in the Boer population and the custom of dividing property equally between all the members of the farmer's family have led to a reduction in the size of farms. Their nomad practice, of driving their stock from the high to the middle veldt for winter feed, has necessarily come to an end owing to shortage of land. Better methods have to be resorted to, and the high-veldt farmer has to learn how he may feed his stock on his farm in winter, and is driven to cultivation. In this he has been greatly assisted by the new agricultural departments, and has largely availed himself of them.

Again, no greater compliment can be paid to these departments than the attitude of the Boers with regard to the diseases of redwater in cattle and scab in sheep. Conservative as they are, suspicious of change, and profoundly suspicious of the meddling of the Government in their farm management, they have been converted to co-operate with the officials in the destruction of diseased stock, and in the enforcement of the regulations promulgated by the departments. They have taken advantage of the stallions imported by the Government, and of the agronomic advice placed at their disposal. In this branch of administration the Boers speak warmly of the benefit of British rule, and indeed their leaders are sufficiently farsighted to praise the experimental farms for tropical produce, such as tobacco and cotton, which have been established in the Zoutpansberg.

The following may be taken as fair evidence of their attitude, coming as it does from the brother of ex-President Steyn. Speaking at the Bloemfontein Farmers' Association last February, Mr. H. Steyn said:

We want men to come to the Parliament that we can rely on to work for the farmers. Look at the Volksraad! Who was the farmer's greatest enemy? The farmer himself. Every time anything came forward for the good of the farmer it was put under the table. I can remember the time when it was proposed to have a veterinary surgeon. It was thrown out.

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Continuing, Mr. Steyn said:

The present Government had done marvels for the country, and he was very glad to see their Governor was going to stop on. He [the Governor] was a farmer himself. Speaking of the veterinary department Mr. Steyn said that their experiments might be expensive, but they did much for the country, and as an example he instanced the importation and use of superior stallions and rams.-Extract from the Bloemfontein Post of February 4, 1907.

But the material interests of the Boers are not confined to agriculture. When, under President Kruger, the miners arrived to develop the Rand, the Transvaal State account was overdrawn at the bank and the credit of the country was exhausted. In two years the revenue increased by two millions. The Boers do not wish to drive away a goose which lays such golden eggs, nor is it likely that they will attempt to limit the output of gold. I do not believe that they are afraid of the political influence of the Rand, because they see the prospect of dissensions between capital and labour.

Again, the Dutch landowner and the British mining prospector have identical interests. The Boer welcomes the prospector on his farm because he hopes to sell it to him for much more than its agricultural value. A country reputed to be so full of minerals offers irresistible attractions to the emigrant Englishman, and the discovery of one successful coal or diamond mine brings as many men into the country as an expensive scheme of land settlement.

It is at least as probable that immigration will give an ultimate majority to the British as that the larger families of the Dutch will produce the contrary result.

But the chief interest of the farmer in the mines lies in the markets which he finds there. In the days of Pretorius, when they were nomads, the Boers lived on their cattle and required no markets. Even after their land settlement they lived on their farms with hardly any imports or exports. Owing to their custom, before mentioned, of dividing their property equally among their children-daughters as well as sons-properties have decreased in size. Smaller farms require closer farming, and closer farming necessitates markets such as only large towns can afford.

If, then, as it appears, the material interests of the Transvaalers increasingly require the co-operation of both races, the development of their own education will speedily lead them to recognise the fact, and no chimera of an independent flag will induce the one party to fall out seriously with the other.

The same conditions apply in the Orange River Colony, because the farmers there, too, supply the markets of the Rand and of Kimberley, and are equally anxious that the prospector should discover mineral wealth on their properties.

In Cape Colony the British and Dutch have no more reason to quarrel in the future than they have had in the past, nor is there any

ground for believing that throughout South Africa generally one of the two races will increase so rapidly as to enable it to oppress or disregard the other. The very fact that there are two races in competition with one another, while it weakens the Afrikander sentiment, tends to strengthen the hold of England upon both.

to

Everything, therefore, leads to the conclusion that the ideal of an independent South Africa will not revive; but ideals are necessary in politics, and it cannot be expected that the Dutch should feel for the British Empire the sentimental attraction of an Australian or of a New Zealander. The ideal of the immediate future appears be the one foreseen by Mr. Burgers, when he said that the federation of all South Africa south of the Zambesi was grander than the idea of a Republic. Federation has been advocated by men of both races in Natal, in Cape Colony, and in the Transvaal. It is opposed by none; and therefore it must be under the British flag. Only its methods will be matters of contention, and these methods-whether of unification of peoples or of federation of States-as well as the choice of the site of a capital, are sufficient to occupy the minds of South Africans for some time to come. Meanwhile the British connection will be as much a matter of course as their breakfast.

The real danger to that connection does not arise from the Dutch. The seat of the danger is not at the Cape, but in London. It is the possible interference of the Imperial Government in the native question.

We have traced the history of the ideal of South African independence. That ideal was the result of the Great Trek, and the Great Trek was caused by the emancipation of the slaves by order of the Home Government. The days of slavery are past, but the native question remains. The natives of civilised South Africa are to-day the happiest and, for their requirements, the most prosperous members of the community. (A 'boy' in the mines earns in six months enough to keep him in affluence for twelve.) Yet so delicately balanced are the relations between whites and blacks, and so important is the question to the whole fabric of South African civilisation, that any ill-judged action on the part of the Home Government might raise such a storm as would unite every Briton and Boer to proclaim an independent republic.

Let the Englishman at home beware lest in his anxiety to benefit the black races he carry his sentiments too far, and thereby lose his power to have any influence in their affairs.

Dutch and British are alike anxious to take up their lives again, where they find themselves, side by side. The ideal of independence is gone; material interests obstruct its revival; but if, on a matter of vital importance, we, the people of the British Isles, are unwilling to trust the white population of South Africa, we cannot expect their loyalty. MONK BRETTON.

IMPERIAL OUTPOSTS

WHATEVER doubts may exist as to the merits of any scheme of Army reform, it is unquestionable that within the Army itself, among both officers and men, there is to be witnessed the spontaneous growth of a spirit of individual self-reform as remarkable as it is reassuring. A movement so strong and so universal almost deserves the name of an upheaval. In all ranks there are signs and symptoms of a determination that on the soldiers' side, at any rate, nothing shall be wanting in the endeavour to raise the quality of the Army as a fighting force, whatever the supreme non-military public may choose to decide as to its quantity. Upon a subject which has recently been dealt with at some length in another arena 1 it would be superfluous here to dilate further in detail. But all friends of the British Army will be glad to note how effectively at the present time its enhanced professionalism is being assisted by the opportune publication of various books likely to prove valuable to the military student. Pre-eminent among these stands Mr. Fortescue's History of the British Army, of which the fourth volume has recently appeared, while another instalment is understood to be almost ready for the press. Within narrower lines, of course, but deserving to take place in the front rank of presentday military or quasi-military literature, is Colonel A. M. Murray's new book, felicitously named Imperial Outposts. It is not a survey of the whole Empire, like Sir Charles Dilke's memorable Greater Britain, for it is concerned only indirectly with India, Australasia, and South Africa. Its aim is to give some account of that vast engirdling chain of military stations, extending round the world, which knits up the British dominion-the great highway of the Empire by which communication is kept up not only with our chief dependencies, but with Japan, whose alliance is the keystone of the English world-policy.

Realising the vital importance of safeguarding this principal line of communication-the sea portion of which includes the MediterEducation in Relation to the Army' was the subject of a paper read and discussed at the Royal United Service Institution on the 20th of February.

2 Imperial Outposts from a Strategical and Commercial Aspect, with special Reference to the Japanese Alliance. By Colonel A. M. Murray, R.A. London: John Murray, 1907.

ranean, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and the Straits of Malacca and Formosa-the author of this book last year made a personal inspection of the whole route from this country to Japan, visiting on the way Gibraltar, Malta, Aden, Colombo, Penang, Singapore, Hong-Kong, and Shanghai, and returning home by Canada. Concerning these 'Imperial posts' what Colonel Murray has to tell is of the highest importance in the interests of Imperial strategy and British trade. As he says, the British people are traders first and fighters afterwards, our colossal naval power being maintained as a means to securing our peaceful commercial expansion. This close interdependence of strategy and trade the author is careful to illustrate at all points. Such a book, based on the best information, moderate in length, written in an excellent style, and capitally illustrated with maps, plans, and photographs, should have a great vogue among Britons of every class who are mindful of the tremendous responsibilities of empire. But it is above all to the military profession-fired as it now is with fresh energies that a book like this makes strong appeal. In the first place it throws welcome light on various points of Imperial strategy, supplying many details not easily obtainable-if at all-from ordinary sources, gathered at first-hand on the spot, and dealing with the very latest phases and most recent developments of the local conditions. In addition, Colonel Murray's five chapters on Japan, written immediately after the termination of the war, do much to satisfy the keen curiosity naturally felt in our own Army as to the causes which contributed to the recent astounding military successes of our Japanese allies. But, more than this, the author will earn the gratitude of many officers appointed to fill administrative political posts in newly acquired tracts of territory under the protection of the British flag. The due fulfilment of such a task, which in the process of the development and pacification of the British Empire often devolves on quite junior officers, must be materially aided by a knowledge in detail of the upgrowth of their Sovereign's oversea dominions. Over and over again it has been noted in the many dependencies of the Crown that the men whose work has yielded the quickest and richest harvest of order and prosperity are those who appreciate and can use to the highest advantage the racial characteristics of the peoples whose lives they are set to control.

At every spot which he visited the author's practised eye-aided, no doubt, by his official opportunities for becoming acquainted with the actualities of the position-have enabled him to draw conclusions of which it will be well worth his countrymen's while to take account. Even on the familiar topic of Gibraltar as the front-door of the Mediterranean, he re-states old facts well and has some new ones to add. The magnitude of Great Britain's commercial interests in the Mediterranean is perhaps not generally appreciated. One-third of our foreign trade comes along this inland sea, and it has recently become the