198 OSTRICH-FARMING IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



lease to be forfeited, when it shall be put up to public 

 auction, but any surplus accruing from the sale goes to 

 the first lessee." 



Such are the three acts under which all Crown 

 lands are now disposed of, and it must be owned that for 

 liberality of terms they are not to be beaten by any 

 colony under the Crown. Even the agricultural immi- 

 grant, if he possesses the means to purchase one or two 

 pairs of birds, or a few young birds, together with his 

 agriculture, would be in a fair way to a competency, 

 even if not to a fortune. 



With the quieting-down of the native wars that have 

 done so much harm to South Africa, and those which 

 are now raging, which ought never to have occurred — 

 and would not have done so had the present govern- 

 ment only listened to the voice of those who, having 

 the true welfare of the country at heart, and knowing 

 the natives, tried their utmost to dissuade the govern- 

 ment from continuing their mad, headstrong policy of 

 indiscriminate disarmament which has brought all the 

 present troubles upon the Cape Colony. The bitter 

 experience which the country has now had will in- 

 duce in the future such a keen interest in politics that 

 snch madness is not likely again to occur. 



To say more on this subject would be to trench' on 

 the domain of politics, which would be foreign to the 



