IQ4 SOUTH AFRICA. 



the existing sparse populations. If the rinderpest 

 should, in the southern parts of the country, rage 

 with the virulence it has done in the more northern 

 districts, actual famine will certainly result. The 

 territories I have mentioned are, even at their 

 best, too sterile to support a sufficient supply of 

 live stock adequately to supply present demand. 

 It is fruitless to expect that the gaps already made 

 in the cattle stock by rinderpest and increasing 

 droughts can be filled up within the necessary time. 

 Unpopular as my opinion may be, it is full time 

 to confess that South Africa is, if we except its 

 mineral productions, one of the poorest countries 

 on earth, and that everywhere Nature opposes 

 successfully all attempts at improvements on 

 anything like an important scale. 



People point in vain to the speed with which 

 countries like Australia and Argentina recuperate 

 after suffering severe losses of stock from drought, 

 and argue that South Africa might do the same. 

 They forget the fact that in the countries alluded 

 to the herbage is all, or nearly all, acceptable to 

 all kinds of live stock, which therefore rapidly 

 increases; that in South Africa the exact reverse 

 is the case, at least eighty per cent of the grass" 



