SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL ASPECTS 171 



grievances is beyond doubt. I am personally only 

 too well aware of the fact, as at the time I incurred a 

 considerable amount of unpopularity (unjustly as I 

 thought then and still think) from having, as was 

 alleged, taken up a hostile attitude on the question 

 towards a large and at that time an influential section 

 of the constituency which I represented in Parlia- 

 ment. 



Well do I remember the year 1880, when I nearly 

 lost my seat. I had to go about the country making 

 speeches on Afghanistan and Zululand, defending 

 the policy of the Government, and expressing views 

 which perhaps I have since seen reason to modify 

 while all the time I felt it was not so much the aggres- 

 sive attitude of my political chiefs in far-away regions 

 that provoked a certain hostility towards myself, as 

 the aggressive attitude which I was supposed to have 

 assumed on the subject of deer forests. And yet I 

 was completely misunderstood. That sheep-farmers 

 had reason to complain of injury inflicted on them 

 arising out of the proximity and development of deer 

 forests no one, myself least of all, could deny. The 

 question was, whether if one class of the community 

 made less profit in the business in which they were 

 engaged, owing to the existence of a new and in a 

 way competitive industry in the same district, it was 



