146 SOUTH AFRICA. 



paid, at the expense of the taxpayers, for the last 

 twenty-one years. I have no means of estimating 

 the last-mentioned item with any precision, but 

 these payments can hardly have amounted to less 

 than 150,000 in addition. We are supposed to 

 be governed by responsible Ministers, but perhaps 

 this is only one of the prescriptive fictions John 

 Bull so dearly loves and pays for. It may be 

 objected, with some show of plausibility, that the 

 cost of the Griqua war should not be included as 

 one chargeable to Gladstonian misdeeds, as the 

 actual outbreak occurred during Major Lanyon's 

 tenure of office as Administrator, but the fact 

 remains that the real "casus belli" was the dis- 

 affection of the Griquas at having been " sold " by 

 Arnott. The first shots fired were caused by the 

 action of a magistrate appointed under the Arnott 

 regime, in conjunction with two other persons 

 whose acts of alleged injustice excited the natives 

 into a state of frenzy. Two of these gentlemen are 

 still living, but as I have eaten their salt I can do 

 no less than decline mentioning names or giving 

 publicity to the details of this lamentable episode. 

 There is, I suppose, an unwritten statute of 

 limitation absolving public men after the lapse of 



