A South African Kingdom.

A grave problem demanded settlement immediately after he arrived. It concerned the policy to be pursued towards the Native races. He had already served his apprenticeship to this department of statesmanship in two very different countries, and was thus prepared for grappling with it on an ascending scale of difficulty. The rapid decline and steadfast retreat of the Australian blacks were gradually withdrawing them from intercourse with the colonists and supervision by the Governments. The Maoris were far more formidable, but they too were wasting away before the white advance, and their total disappearance was only a question of time. It was quite otherwise in South Africa. What to do with the blacks? was a question that kept sleep from the eyes of every High Commissioner in turn. The problem was at its acutest in Zululand, where the colonists were, as they still are, enormously outnumbered by the Zulus. A plausible solution of a particular portion of the problem had already been proposed. Mr. (now so well known as Sir) Theophilus Shepstone was the son of an African missionary, and as such had ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with the Zulus. So completely was he master of everything connected with the subject that he had for years been confidential adviser to the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal on Native affairs.

Proposed Zulu Province.

To this connection it was owing that he made proposals to Sir Benjamin Pine, the Lieutenant-Governor, respecting the disposal and management of some 50,000 or page 11260,000 Zulus who had fled into Natal to escape from the tyranny of three ferocious Zulu chieftains—Chaaka, Dingaan, and Panda. This huge horde of natives formed a source of disturbance and unrest in Natal. Could they not be organized into one of those non-genealogical tribes which Sir Alfred Lyall discovered in India, and which Dr. W. E. Hearn believed to be the origin of the State? Yes, certainly, thought Mr. Shepstone; provided a suitable location could be found. One such was lying invitingly ready at hand. To the west of Natal, between the colony and British Kafraria, lay a beautiful and fertile territory, where forests flanked wide and well-watered pasture-lands. What specially recommended it for settlement was the fact that it was a waste domain, occupied only by a few white settlers and a few kraals, but mainly by wild beasts. Mr. Shepstone proposed that he should march the entire body into this no-man's-land. There, under more favourable conditions, he was to continue to rule over them and pursue his civilising work. Who, indeed, so well fitted to play to them the part of an Earthly Providence?

Undesirable.

The proposal had been heartily seconded by the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal and conditionally sanctioned by the Home Government. The matter was sub judice when Grey arrived at the Cape. Sir John Pakington, still Secretary for the Colonies, required him to report on the proposal. He examined it thoroughly, as was his custom, viewed it under a variety of lights, and probed it to the bottom. On December 3, 1855, he at length made his report. His imagination, which led him astray in Western Australia and misled him so grievously in New Zealand, again played a prominent part. In a vision he beheld Shepstone's Goshen occupied by a numerous and thriving white population. Forgetting Matabeleland, now Rhodesia, he described it as the last-remaining uncolonised part of South Africa that was suited for European colonisation. Situated on the eastern slope of the great range of the Drakensberg, it page 113was the key of South Africa (surely a gross exaggeration!) and, held by British colonists, it would safeguard States that were now in jeopardy. More than half a century has rolled by since then. Have his prophecies in respect of the disputed territory been more completely fulfilled than they were in North-Western Australia?

But the root of his objections to the scheme did not really lie there. They lay in the position to be granted to Shepstone. That touched him to the quick. That an imperium should be created in imperio of the real ruler of South Africa was intolerable. That it should be assigned to a missionary's son, and that son Shepstone, was monstrous. That such a man should be placed in the position of a sovereign, possessing absolute powers and without giving guarantees for his loyalty, was nothing less than a scandal. Yet it was the position he had himself assumed in South Australia and New Zealand; it was the position he would himself have accepted in New Zealand so recently as 1884. It took on quite a different complexion when it was to be assumed by another. What was Shepstone's record? For ten years he had had complete control over the Zulus of Natal (Grey's later account was only that he had been "confidential adviser to the Lieutenant-Governor"). He had magistrates to aid him, missionaries and a military force. Yet the Zulus were as great savages as they had been a thousand years before (how did he know that?). If Great Britain designed to set up an independent kingdom, let her select as its ruler one whose public service and experience proved his fitness to govern both natives and Europeans (Grey himself, namely).

There were other objections to the scheme, he held. The removal of the Zulus into the new country would breed disorder. The massing of men was always disastrous (how many examples there have been, all over the world and all through history, of voluntary or constrained collective migrations that have not been disastrous!). Fresh hordes would flow into Zululand to fill the places of those who had gone, and these would be a source of peril to Cape Colony.

Scheme Arrested.

So far had the matter proceeded that Shepstone had actually procured the cession of the territory from the few native chiefs who occupied it, and he prepared to enter into possession. But the High Commissioner would bear no brother-ruler near his throne. After instructing Sir Benjamin Pine to proceed no further in the matter, he reported adversely, and the Home Government could do no otherwise than accept the verdict. Mr. Shepstone had to wait for his kingdom. We cannot help regretting that the experiment was not made. Shepstone could probably have assured its success, if anyone could. It was not to be, and the Zulus are still a menace to Natal.