ment, and from which option is ex- a statesman more experienced than an cluded. moment, even in the interests of the colonists themselves. For no sooner was it undertaken, with its first fruits of failure, than the whole force of the Opposition at home, exasperated by its exclusion from office, and by the growing authority and reputation of Lord Beaconsfield, spent itself in a chorus ex-Indian official in the mode in which Of course there was nothing left but English party warfare is conducted, urgently to press the home government and less habituated to decide on his for reinforcements. His own position course from purely local considerations, was weakened by what had occurred; might possibly have appreciated that but resignation of his office, in spite of the state of affairs in England, as well appeals from home and in the colony, as political complications in Europe was out of the question. Sir Garnet and Asia, rendered a South African Wolseley was sent in the summer of war most imprudent at that particular 1879 to supersede Lord Chelmsford in the command of the army, and Frere, "for the time," as high commissioner, so far as the Transvaal, Natal, and other portions of the territory subject to him were concerned. This division of authority was not a move in the direction of union and confederation, but rather of separation and disintegration, of condemnation. No moderation was and seems to us to point a convenient opportunity for Sir Bartle Frere to resign. He decided, however, to remain, and his relations with Sir Garnet do not appear to have been very satisfactory, nor even with the home government, which was desirous of transferring to Sir Garnet part of the emoluments of Frere's office. In the following year Sir Garnet was succeeded in his portion of the high commissionership by Sir George Colley. It is interesting to note that Frere never wavered as to the soundness of his policy. In September, 1879, we find him writing that the more the facts were considered, the more clearly it would appear that the war was inevitable and righteous, the only way of preventing bloody Zulu inroads into British territory, and a simultaneous Boer rebellion in the Transvaal; and that an overwhelming majority of the colonists, of whatever race or origin, declared that he had gained their warmest approbation. observed. Not merely was the war denounced as wrongful and unnecessary, and its disasters imputed to gross inefficiency, but sympathy with the Boers was loudly proclaimed, and a demand put forward in the name of sound Liberal policy and justice that the annexation of the Transvaal should be reversed. Mr. Gladstone sounded no note of opposition to that annexation when it was first proclaimed. The leading Boers had themselves acquiesced in its necessity, and encouraged and consented to it-urged thereto by their Zulu and financial difficulties. But no sooner did South African difficulties provide an opportunity for making party capital than Mr. Gladstone discovered it to have resulted from "the invasion of a free people." The Transvaal was described as a country where we had insanely placed ourselves in the strange predicament of the free subjects of a monarchy going to coerce the free subjects of a republic, and to There does not seem to be any proof compel them to accept a citizenship that the war was necessary to prevent which they decline and refuse. The Zulu inroads; while the Boer rebellion Boers took up their cue, and begged broke out in spite of it, and terminated, that "the injustice done to the Transafter a series of events most disastrous vaal might find redress." When the to British reputation, in their regaining Mid-Lothian orator came into office he independence. It is not the least to very soon discovered that it was easier the discredit of Sir Bartle Frere that to kindle a flame than to quench a fire. the actual course of events was entirely His colonial secretary, Lord Kimberley, excluded from his contemplation. But might announce at his leisure, and ought to be remembered in his favor that he was a man of unblemished integrity, who had vindicated during a long career a character for courage and capacity. He was a man of high aims and unyielding will, keen to maintain the imperial authority, and to enforce justice as between races. AngloIndians at all events have no reason to doubt but that in his view the dominant race had its rights and privileges as well as its responsibilities. after Cabinet consideration, that "the accordingly Lord Carnarvon's project sovereignty of the queen over the was indefinitely postponed. Frere acTransvaal could not be relinquished; cordingly quitted South Africa, and that he hoped for the speedy accom- had at least the satisfaction of carrying plishment of confederation, which with him the cordial approbation and would enable free institutions to be gratitude of all the European colonists. given to the Transvaal and Natal as It cannot be denied that his career already proposed." But the Boers had ended in failure. The policy of conbeen encouraged to very different federation which he was specially apviews, and being dissatisfied with the pointed to promote was eliminated results of the annexation to which they from the field of practical politics. had consented, moved heaven and The Boers were on the eve of cancelearth to repeal it. They sent their ling the Transvaal annexation. The emissaries to Cape Town to hinder affairs of the Cape were in confusion, confederation, and rekindle animosity and he himself was overwhelmed by between Dutch and English. The the sequence of events which had been Aborigines Protection Society was ushered in by a war which he had started in London, which interfered undertaken without authority from between natives and whites in South home. It was a terrible retribution for Africa with the confidence of ignorance the one blunder of his life, and it and partisanship. A Basuto war was stirred up, in which the government at home evaded responsibility, while Radical members of Parliament were said to be encouraging Boer leaders and the Cape Town opposition. Even as regards the Zulus themselves, our recent opponents in a sanguinary war, Mr. Gladstone had shown his hostility to his countrymen and colonists (who had no votes to give him) by speaking of that war as "the record of ten thousand Zulus slain for no other offence than their attempt to defend against your artillery with their naked bodies their Their origin may be traced to the invahearths and homes, their wives and families." An influential memorial was presented to the same statesman as prime minister, to the effect that the recall of Sir Bartle Frere would conduce to the unity of the party and redeem their pledges to constituents. It certainly seems a very extraordinary thing that Frere should have persisted in retaining his office under such circumstances, and in waiting till he was formally recalled in August, 1880, on the ground of divergence between his views and those of the new government at home, and that no prospect remained of his being able to forward the policy of confederation. The Cape Parliament, it seems, had recently refused to take even the preliminary step of a conference with a view to that policy, and After Sir Bartle Frere left the Cape, events quickly developed themselves. sion of Zululand and the contemporaneous dissatisfaction occasioned to the Boers by their own cession of their territory in expectation of favors which they never obtained. For Boer grievances Frere was not responsible, nor for the consequences of the policy pursued towards the Transvaal and Zululand after Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived to supersede him in July, 1879. The Boer leaders began to prepare for armed rebellion before Frere's recall. Sir George Colley, on his arrival, declined to see them, and treated their projected resistance as a matter of small importance. On the 16th December, 1880, they issued a proclamation declaring the re-establishment of their republic. Hostilities ensued, the insurrection drawing its forces from the Orange Free State and elsewhere, as well as ernment of 1880–85. Their leader had from the Transvaal. Sir George Colley the satisfaction of pointing to speeches entered upon the campaign with forces in which, long after the event, and at so inadequate that the British troops a favorable moment for party purposes, were repulsed on three separate occa- he had denounced the acquisition of sions, on the last of which — viz., at the Transvaal as valueless and dishonMajuba Hill-he lost his life, and a orable. But that sentiment, even if complete surrender was made by the justified, did not excuse the subsequent crown to successful rebels of British surrender, regardless of all the engageterritory and British good faith. ments and liabilities which had grown up during its retention. Accordingly, the phrase that "it was a question of saving the country from sheer bloodguiltiness" was invented to cover the disgrace of the whole transaction, and closed a chapter in our history in which Great Britain was found treating with armed rebels to its authority on terms of almost unconditional surrender to them. The only excuse put forward over and above the escape from bloodguiltiness was that we thereby redressed the wrong of the original annexation. It was considered to be no objection that we at the same time wilfully violated all the engagements which that temporary annexation had involved, and abandoned numbers of innocent people who had trusted to our pledges. 66 Frere always believed the outbreak in the Transvaal to be of Irish origin. He had found the real wire-pullers of the Boer Committee to be foreigners of various nationalities, together with an Irishman of the name of Aylward, an ex-Fenian who had been pardoned for turning queen's evidence against the murderers of the Manchester policeman, and was now an acknowledged leader of the Boers. Money to stir up the insurrection came in from the Irish rebel societies, according to Le Caron's evidence before the Parnell Commission. The Transvaal was one of the points of attack, says Mr. Martineau, of the anarchical plots which had their headquarters in Ireland and America. The foes of England, those of her own household, no doubt, looked on with exultation while British commissioners yielded to the demands of the Boers, without even securing satisfaction from those who had murdered their countrymen or otherwise violated the usages of war. The Transvaal was given back, in spite of repeated pledges by the British crown that it should be retained, on the faith of which hundreds of Europeans had settled in the country and staked their all, and seven hundred thousand natives relied for protection. The pledge had The pledge had been given, it is said, by three secretaries its thickest, and difficulties seemed to of state, three high commissioners, and two Houses of Commons. "Thank God," said a loyal native, "my children are Afrikanders, and need not be ashamed of their country!" It was an unfortunate thing for Sir Bartle Frere's reputation, and we cannot help feeling extremely sorry for him, that he should have been mixed up in such a responsible manner with a tangle of events so deplorable and humiliating. His past history did not deserve it. Amongst the great heroes of the Indian Mutiny he deservedly holds a foremost place. He exhibited, during the whole of that arduous time, courage, capacity, and resource in no ordinary degree. While danger was at be overwhelming, he, like so many of our countrymen, so far from showing the least tendency to shrink, was prompt and forward to meet them, recognizing that the only policy was to These transactions, as well as the dare all, and that by daring all we desertion of Gordon, when he was should win all. No other spirit than "hemmed in but not surrounded" at that could have coped successfully with Khartoum, form a melancholy page of the appalling dimensions of that strugEnglish history, and must forever gle on the part of a small island to brand with disgrace the Gladstone gov-retain empire over a huge continent separated by a distance of thousands of others would fail to share that view. to the position which he occupied before the Zulu troubles, that of a man who had rendered signal service to India for more than a generation, who had displayed during momentous events qualities which justified Lord Carnarvon in singling him out as the statesman best fitted to forward a great scheme of imperial confederation, who continued to display similar qualities during his colonial administration, but fell a victim to one error of judgment which at once plunged him into the abyss of English party passions stimulated to a white-heat by the progress of a general election. While we recognize the error, we feel that the measure dealt out to him was hard beyond all fit porportion, and we welcome this vindication of his career as that of a man who deserved well of his country, and of whom England may be proud. miles. Even after the suppression of The disaster which ensued was mag- From The Leisure Hour. I. THE position of Mrs. Tonkin's residence and the arrangement of her kitchen windows are the envy of all her acquaintance. The principal window, which in most cottages would be the only one, merely looks across the narrow street to the yellow walls, mossy slate roofs, and doors and windows of the opposite houses, and is, besides, so crowded with geraniums and primulus that it is of little use, save for the minor and unimportant house being the corner house of a row, and situated on the verge of a kind of square or place (known as the Green, but innocent of verdure), the ingenious 1 4 builder has seized the opportunity of | ment, floored with alternate squares of inserting in the side wall, on a line red and yellow brick, ceiled with bare, with the fireplace, a subsidiary win- varnished boards, and furnished, as to dow, tall and narrow in shape, which not only commands a full view of the said Green - a favorite lounging and gossiping place-but rakes the main street of the village fore and aft, so to speak, for twenty or thirty yards, besides permitting a fairly comprehensive view of the harbor below. 99.66 chairs and tables, in a fashion which calls for no remark. On the walls hang a few colored almanacks and oleographs, and a large and interesting collection of memorial cards neatly framed in black. By an attentive perusal of these the inquirer may obtain a fund of information concerning Mrs. The advantages this window confers Tonkin's deceased relations their are as obvious as they are enviable. births, deaths, and virtues. On a side Consider for a moment the unfortunate table is piled a small collection of books case of Mrs. Matthews next door, or of —a large gilt family Bible, hymnMrs. Harvey over the way. Possess-books, Methodist tracts, "The Narraing only windows of the ordinary kind, tive of Mrs. Hesther Rogers," Foxe's their outlook is so limited that scarcely "Book of Martyrs," Pilgrim's Proghas the passer-by come within range of ress," "The Seaman's Manual," and observation than he, or she-which is "Valentine Vox," a book which has more important is hidden again, gone far to shake Mrs. Tonkin's belief often before the poor ladies have had in the infallibility of all printed matter. time to look up from their work. At In fact, she does not hesitate to brand the best they are rewarded with the it as "a pack o' lies." You will also briefest, most tantalizing of glimpses; notice a grandfather's clock, for which, and twenty times a day they must it is whispered, a Plymouth gentleman either interrupt their occupations to once offered Mrs. Tonkin fifty pounds make a hurried rush for the street in vain; an ostrich egg (which no door, or leave their curiosity unsatisfied, and run a terrible risk of missing some interesting paragraph in the daily history of the town. But with Mrs. Tonkin it is otherwise. Every living creature that passes up or down the Opposite the small window a door street comes under the scope of her gives access to the front entry, the observation for something like half a parlor, and the staircase; and there is minute time enough for the expe- another door at the back of the room, rienced eye to master every detail of which opens into the "loft." This is dress and appearance, and to draw a square, paved yard of equal width to therefrom infallible deductions as to the cottage, and quite surrounded by the victim's private affairs. A new neighboring houses, whose upper storibbon at a maiden's throat, the neck ries project considerably over it, so of a bottle protruding from an old that only a small part in the centre is woman's gown pocket, the ragged open to the sky a kind of impluvium. sleeves of a married woman's jersey - The sheltered portion serves as a storesuch things speak volumes to the dis- place for nets, gear, coals, and the like. cerning mind. Without leaving her In a tub set at one corner of the open "churrs," Mrs. Tonkin can tell you space grows the pride of Mrs. Tonkin's who is prospering and who is not, who heart, a geranium such as you must in love, who at odds with his wife, who visit Cornwall to see - - full ten feet is to have beef for dinner and who high, with a thick, woody stem, and contents himself with salt fish. In bearing every year some hundred clusshort, Mrs. Tonkin is a happy woman, ters of pink blossom. The loft comand all because of the little window. municates with the street by means of The kitchen itself is a roomy apart-a dark passage or tunnel running down properly furnished cottage can be without); and some mysterious cylinders of colored glass, hanging from the ceiling by threads, and regarded as highly ornamental. |