How an Enlightened Transvaal should view the Spread of Free Institutions in the North.

To the South African Republic it is vitally important to weigh well in what manner the Bulawayo railway will affect her future. The Republic will soon be surrounded by a rampart of steel on three sides and alien land and ocean on the other. From Beira, north of the Republic, a railway will run west to Salisbury, and thence south to Bulawayo and the Cape. With two ways of ingress from the sea a country like Rhodesia—with as good a climate as the Transvaal State, with resources which tend to rapid prosperity, enjoying impartial and liberal laws, just and pure administration, opening its arms widely to the whole world without regard to race, blessed with ample domains and suited to the needs of all classes—must necessarily prove more attractive to all people in search of homes, than a country which only favours Dutch burghers; and Rhodesia therefore bids fair in a few years to overtake the Republic in population, and even to surpass it. The Boers do not avail themselves of the advantages of their position to that fulness which would make it doubtful whether Rhodesia or the Transvaal offered the most inducements to intending settlers. On the contrary, the common report is that the object of the Boers is to restrict population and reserve the State for Boer progeny. I shall see the country for myself, I hope, and either verify or disprove it. But if true, the attempt to suppress population and growth by restrictions, monopolies, and vexatious ordinances is simple imbecility, as compared to the Chartered Company’s policy of stimulating commerce by giving free rein to enterprise, and keeping the paths and gates to its territory freely open to all comers. If there is an intelligent man in the Transvaal, it must be clear to him that the Republic must soon lose the rank among South African States to which she was entitled by her wonderful resources and undoubted advantages; and the only thing that can save her from degradation, neglect, and financial difficulties, is the absorption of that alien population which crowds her cities and clamours for political rights.