206 Afterward 



hard life so he retired from public affairs; but 

 continued to take an interest in various useful bodies 

 and schemes for the general welfare. He was 

 president of the Western Province Agricultural 

 Society in 1904, and in conjunction with Mr. Rhodes, 

 who had generously given the fine show-grounds at 

 Rosebank to the Society, did a good deal in helping 

 to improve that Society in its work for the country. 



In the last years of his life he was much 

 saddened by the political unrest, and the racial 

 quarrels fomented by agitators and irreconcilables, 

 often saying, that when he first knew the country, the 

 language and racial questions hardly existed, they 

 had become greatly accentuated by men posing as 

 friends of the people. He hoped great things from 

 the Union of 1910, and though many of these hopes 

 are as yet unfulfilled, and the country has again 

 been distracted by rebellion and the great war those 

 very events have brought out the loyalty of the more 

 enlightened to the British Empire and who recognise 

 the justice and freedom possible under that rule. 

 In his own words " men of all nationalities and all 

 parties hoped, that, with the Union, at last all 

 sections of the community would recognise the 

 wisdom of conciliation, and of building up a white 

 nation of South Africans, whether their mother- 

 tongue were English, Dutch or other European 

 language." 



Though his last days were deeply saddened by 

 the world war (which undoubtedly hastened his end, 

 as that of many of the older generation) and he 

 longed for peace for this distracted country; he 

 realized that after the war, when life generally 

 must be re-adjusted to new conditions a brighter 

 future must dawn, bringing expansion, a wider out- 

 look, and a greater development of the limitless 



