dinner, we have been talking in the drawing room, our host giving us 

 the most instructive and interesting account of affairs here, poUtical, 

 mining, labour, etc. I wish it were not so late, that I might make a record 

 of his talk. I will only mention the fundamental point of what he said, 

 namely, that every one here is profoundly dissatisfied with the way in 

 which this colony is ruled from London and that responsible self- 

 government must soon be granted, or revolution will follow." 



As everywhere else in South Africa, in Johannesburg I heard the 

 severest criticism of British military rule in the Transvaal and some of 

 the tales told me were quite incredible examples of arrogance and 

 stupidity, for which the English language has no adequate term. The 

 German word dummdreist expresses it fairly well. Shortly after the end 

 of the war, Kipling published, in McClure's Magazine, a story which 

 was a caustic arraignment of a certain type of young officer, an arraign- 

 ment which was ample confirmation of all that I heard in South 

 Africa. This story was announced as the first of a series, but it was also 

 the last and I have often wondered what it was that made Kipling hold 

 his hand. 



On arrival at Pretoria, I shared a cab with a young woman who, born 

 at Cape Town of English parents, had joined the British Association 

 excursion as enabUng her to fulfill her long cherished wish to see 

 Rhodesia and the Victoria Falls. She was of unusual poise and intelli- 

 gence and we all liked and admired her. As we drove through the town 

 and noticed the British flag flying over the buildings that had housed 

 the government of the extinct South African Republic, I said: "It must 

 grind the Boers frightfully to see that flag up there"; to which she 

 replied: "Of course it does and the worst of it is, that these English 

 people can't, in the least, comprehend why it should." She put her finger 

 there on the weak spot in British colonial administration, the general 

 success of which has been the envy and admiration of the world. 



On a Union Pacific train, I once met a German merchant who was 

 settled in Calcutta and was most enthusiastic over the British rule in 

 India, which he declared to be the best-governed country on earth. An 

 American, whose business took him pretty much all over the globe and 

 with whom I crossed the Atlantic, remarked to me, with much truth, 

 that he regarded the British Empire as the greatest instrument of justice 

 ever devised. If people are well and justly governed, the English think 

 it is absurd of them to want anything more, but Ireland, Egypt and 

 India show that sympathetic insight is no less essential. Sir Henry 

 Campbell-Bannerman did a very wise and statesmanlike thing, when 



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