and British opinion upon the broad aspect of the native problem. Colonial feeling is on the whole sympathetic to the education and development of the Kaffir. On the other hand, it is quite unanimous that there is to be no question of equality, either social or political, between the white and the black races. Nor is there in practice any question of social equality in any part of South Africa. The question, however, of the political rights of natives has been hopelessly complicated by the divisions of the white population in the past The constitution granted to Cape Colony in 1858 admitted the natives to the franchise on equal terms with the white inhabitants—that is to say, with a low property and educational qualification. This policy was in accordance with British traditions, and, as a matter of fact, it was endorsed, when the time for self-government came, by the people of the Colony themselves. Natal followed suit in theory, but has succeeded in practice in evading the obligations of its charter. Rhodesia is bound by the same law as Cape Colony, but its native population has not yet advanced to the requisite standard of progress. On the other hand, the two Dutch Republics gave no rights to their natives at all, and the Transvaal and Orange River Colony are debarred by the terms of Vereeniging from modifying this tradition until the days of responsible government. Thus there has grown up the widest possible divergence in the practice of the five South African States in this crucial problem of the native franchise; and other incongruities, in questions of land tenure and education and so forth, have followed in its train.
The present position of the problem is entirely dominated by the situation in Cape Colony, where the native vote is now sufficient to turn the scale in a large number of constituencies. It is a situation of grave peril, as men of all parties are prepared to admit; and the peril is not by any means confined to Cape Colony itself. The natives throughout South Africa are in close communication with one another. Absolute dis-
