the world as a great and rich community, or be a mere nothing at all in its eye. There is no such thing as a prudent medium to be observed.'
'You must be satisfied to pay for substantial and permanent improvements, my friend.'
'Substantial improvements! Yes, indeed, and it amounts to this: we are to be improved off the face of the earth! We are to have railways all over the island, whether there is traffic for them or not; we are to be mocked by reproductive works which cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and do not reproduce one penny. We are to be hoodwinked, and told that our riches are inexhaustible while we are borrowing millions! We have additional taxation laid upon us after the severe droughts, which wither us to the core and cause enormous losses. We have our country flooded with labourers while the borrowed money is being squandered, and these will, in another year or two, constitute a grand army of unemployed. This House of Assembly, which is composed principally of merchants and the denizens of towns, says that nearly all the wealth of the colony is appropriated by the owners of land, consequently all their efforts are concentrated on making these unlucky men bear the heaviest burdens.'
'Why are you not in the House, Ubertus? You might bring it to its senses.'
'No, sir, the House would not listen to me. It will listen to no reason, and take no warning. It waits to be taught by bitter experience. It has not a penny laid by for a rainy day, such as the landing of a foreign enemy on our shores; nothing but debt, always increasing debt, to stare us in the face. The gigantic machinery of Government must be kept in motion, and it must be well oiled so that it may run smoothly; but I expect that some day it will fly to pieces.'
