THE MEN OF PRETORIA. 135 



be the merchant of the future. He knows the wants 

 and interests of the region, and understands both the 

 Boer and the Kafir. He has not the prejudices of the 

 Englishman fresh from home, and he appreciates and 

 is better able to deal with the prejudices of those with 

 whom he is thrown in contact. What we call middle- 

 class social life is also largely supported by the colonial 

 merchants, and they are the backbone of the noncon- 

 formist bodies in the Transvaal, of which the Wesleyans 

 are far and away the strongest, and the Baptists making 

 a beginning. Both in Natal and the Cape Colony, 

 Boers were once numerous and are still found ; so that 

 the colonist has really never quite lost touch with the 

 people who now only inhabit a country which resembles 

 and adjoins his own. The youth of our two colonies 

 are capable of supplying all the commercial clerks that 

 may be needed for the commerce of the Transvaal ; and 



.' r 



if the Boers really understood their own interests, and 

 were free from the domination of the Hollander, they 

 would rely more on colonial friendship, and trouble 

 themselves less with the idiosyncrasies of Downing 

 Street. Common interests must produce fusion ; im- 

 perialism perished with the disaster of Majuba ; a 

 confederation of South- African States already exists in 

 men's hearts, it will soon reach their minds, and even- 

 tually be proclaimed by their mouths. Already, in the 

 Transvaal, clear-headed men see that even commercial 

 companies can neither be properly managed nor guided 

 by a Board of Directors sitting in London ; how little, 

 then, can we expect to prevent the inevitable South- 

 African Confederacy, which will be mainly composed of 

 English-speaking people 1 



The Hebrew race is largely represented in the Trans- 

 vaal, especially by those whose former home was in 

 eastern Europe, and the Jew is destined to play a con- 

 siderable and very influential part in the fortunes of the 

 country. In a few years the Transvaal from being a 

 purely geographical expression, inhabited by a pastoral 

 community, has, by the utilization of its mineral wealth 

 become a financial factor in the dealings of the Stock 



