FIRST YEARS IN SOUTH AFRICA. 27 



obtained about all she wanted, and was desirous 

 of gathering up and employing her loot to the 

 best advantage, and soon bloomed into the position 

 of the autocrat of the world's commerce. The 

 elite of the Continental populations had been 

 sacrificed on the war altar, and of capital for indus- 

 trial purposes little was available. In view of 

 recently passed experiences and of minatory 

 prospects, the necessary capital for manufacturing 

 and commercial enterprise was unobtainable 

 abroad ; England plied her work unmolested by 

 competition, and many years elapsed before 

 foreign capital accumulated and driblets of it 

 were applied to the exigencies of trade develop- 

 ments. America, too, was only in its adolescence, 

 and but yesterday, counted by historical periods, 

 attained the giant station and strength which now 

 characterise her as a nation, bringing qualities 

 which bid fair shortly to enable her successfully 

 to defy competition in all fields of production. 



The moral of this digression is that in view of 

 the natural and apparent course of events it would 

 seem prudent for John Bull to diminish, or, better 

 still, forego, expensive luxuries in the unproductive 

 regions of Negrophilism, not forgetting meanwhile 



