THE FUTURE OF CAPE COLONY. 425 



own. He has now manoeuvred the Portuguese 

 Government into such a position that the Delagba 

 Railway — for which he has been playing so long — 

 was recently confiscated with the ulterior view of 

 selling it to himself or his nominees. Meanwhile, 

 aided by his Afrikander Bund friends of the Cape 

 Colony, who temporarily shelved the Bechuanaland 

 extension already voted, for a rival line through the 

 Free State, he deluded the Cape colonists into the 

 idea that he would assist in a line through the Free 

 State to the gold-fields. Having gained the time he 

 required for the development of his Delagoa Bay 

 policy, the Cape party find themselves, after a year 

 of waiting, left out in the cold, the Orange Free 

 State Volksraad, acting with Kruger, having shelved 

 the Kimberley-Bloemfontein extension for a year 

 certain. It was a pretty scheme enough, but the 

 firm attitude of the British Government in connection 

 with the Delagoa Bay Railway Confiscation may 

 probably render it after all futile. 



The Cape Government, after being thus humbugged 

 (there is no other word for it) by Kruger and the 

 Orange Free State for a year, will now do well to 

 turn their attention immediately to the Bechuanaland 

 extension, their proper and legitimate outlet to the 

 interior, for which an Act was passed a year ago. A 

 British company is ready and willing to help them 

 from the British Bechuanaland southern border 

 northwards.* 



Certain it is that the gold-fields of the Transvaal, 



* Just as these pages go to press, a cablegram from the Cape 

 announces that Sir Gordon Sprigg has arranged with the British 

 South Africa Company for the immediate extension of the Bechuanaland 

 Railway. 



