"And the end in view is not an easy one to attain in a country,
where the majority of Europeans consider that they, or their
compatriots, inflicted disgrace, and a permanent loss of influence
upon the Imperial Troops on the one hand, and the Imperial British
Government on the other.
"The application of any remedy seems to lie more with the Sovereign
personally, or Her Majesty's immediate advisers in England, than
with any Governor, and High Commissioner, or Cabinet of Cape
Ministers.
"For _qua_ Governor, the Queen's Representative at the Cape, is
necessarily checked, or controlled by the Ministry of the day, his
Constitutional advisers, and the presence in the Cape Parliament of
a dominant force of the essentially non-English, or Africander
party, must necessarily also have a very material influence upon
Ministers, who depend upon a majority of votes for the retention of
their office.
"In short, the problem in the Cape Colony is one, which happily
does not exist in either of the other great dependencies of the
Crown; it is altogether peculiar to South Africa, of which, after
all, England acquired possession by conquest, and, having acquired
it, has never completely won the adhesion of the Dutch inhabitants,
who resent such acts of Government as the abolition of slavery, the
introduction of the English principle of equality before the law,
and, above all, an unsettled vacillating policy, which last has the
worst possible effect upon all the nationalities, European, as
well as native, throughout South Africa.
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