to defend the weakest of these dark-skinned brothers; and this has had to be done in the teeth of much obloquy! Can any virtue rank higher than the performance of so sacred a duty? And then of how much foresight have our ministers the need? How accurately must they read the lessons which history and experience should teach them if Great Britain is to be saved from a repetition of the disgrace which she encountered before the American Colonies declared themselves independent? When we find a man who can look forward and say to himself,—"while we can hold these people, for their own content, to their own welfare, so long we will keep them; but not a moment longer for any selfish aggrandisement of our own;"—when we find a Statesman rising to that pitch, how fervently should we appreciate the greatness of the man, and how ready should we be to acknowledge that he has caught the real secret of Colonial administration.
These splendid qualities have so shone over our Colonial office that the sacred edifice is always bright with them. They scintillate on the brows of every Assistant Secretary, and sit as a coronet on the shining locks of all the clerks. But unfortunately they are always rotatory, so that no one virtue is ever long in the ascendant. Rule Britannia! and the Dutch Member of Parliament has to walk out of his Volksaal and touch his hat to an English Governor. Downing Street and the Treasury have agreed to retrench! Then the Dutch Member of Parliament walks back again. We will at any rate protect the Native! Then the Boer's wife hides the little whip with which she is accustomed to
