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wreck the Constitution. Mr Hofmeyr, the representative of the old local Bond spirit, has led the opposition at the Cape. But he has strained the allegiance of the Bond itself, the younger spirits, headed by Mr Malan, probable successor in the leadership, being enthusias for union; and he has drawn upon himself a seve reproof from that redoubtable antagonist Gener Christian de Wet.

It is a remarkable and most encouraging fact that, both sides, the men who were in sharpest opposition befor and during the war have shown the greatest capacity understand each other's aims and to unite in the wide field of South African nationality. Among the Dute especially, devotion in the past to the Young Africande ideal seems to have served as a preparation for the large national ideal of to-day. A few years ago Mr Malan might have been cited as a type of the most high-minded, most fanatical, and most irreconcilable of Young Africanders: he has been one of the earliest and most effective en thusiasts of union. Mr Steyn and Mr Smuts were protagonists of the Africander cause; with the exception of General Botha they have been perhaps the most prominent and most potent figures in the Convention. Nor can it be pretended that they are enthusiastic for union because they see in it a chance of realising their old ideal, in any sense, at all events, inimical to British interests or dan gerous to the British Empire. Dr Jameson was perhaps the most effective representative of the English party the Convention. He has told us that, when the Convention met, he was opposed to a recognition of the equality the Dutch and English languages; but, after learning personal contact with his Dutch colleagues to apprec their views, he warmly supported them in this matter. It was Dr Jameson also who proposed the cession to Dutch sentiment involved in the restorat of the name Orange Free State to the map of South Afric He had learnt during the Convention that a sentimental clinging to the past in such things as these is not incon sistent with loyalty to the larger hope of the present and the future.

If union should be achieved as the result of the present effort, what is likely to be the effect on the Imperial position in South Africa? A South African nation will

undoubtedly arise. Between the two white races there may not for a long time to come be anything approaching to general fusion. But, as in Canada, without fusion of English and French, the national sentiment borrows something from each, so in South Africa the new nationality will take a colour from both Dutch and English and be enriched by their separate gifts and qualities. And fusion eventually is more probable than in Canada, for the religious obstacle is absent, and geographically the mixture of the two races is much more complete.

What then will be the attitude of the new South African nation to the rest of the British Empire? There seems no reason for taking other than a sanguine view. The growth of definite national feeling in Canada and Australia has changed the situation from what it was in the old colonial days, but it has not made the outlook less hopeful. It is sometimes assumed that the memories of the war, acting on the imagination of one-half of the white inhabitants of South Africa, must give to the new nation an anti-Imperial bias; but there seems no good reason for believing that this assumption will be verified. The brief experience of the last few years points all the other way; and the best justification of the policy of the war is the rapidity with which the wounds it left are healing. In a wider national sentiment racial rancour will be lost; and of rancour against the Empire there is very little trace. In some ways the centripetal forces in South Africa are likely to prove stronger than in either Canada or Australia. The dependence on the Power which holds command of the sea is perhaps more obvious and direct in South Africa than even in Australia; and the pressure of the overwhelming native population will probably, when interference from without has been eliminated, have the effect of disinclining the comparatively small white community from aspiring to a position of complete independence. The problem of maintaining the partnership between the United Kingdom and the rising nationalities at the circumference of the Empire is one which may require the highest statesmanship for its solution; but there is no reason to believe that it will assume in South Africa a more menacing form than in either Canada or Australia, which have preceded her in the path of union.

On March 30 last, the Parliaments of the four colas which it is proposed to unite, met for the purpos discussing the draft Act of Union. In the Trans both Houses of the Legislature have, after brief de and without divisions, passed resolutions approving new Constitution as it stands; no amendment that suggested having received support from more the small knot of members. In the Orange River Cok the Constitution has been adopted, but with a few si amendments. At the moment of going to press the dete are still proceeding at Cape Town and Maritzburg; the probabilities appear to point to the acceptance: the Constitution by the Legislatures at both these pla though possibly in each case with certain substanti amendments. In Natal, however, this acceptance in a special sense, be provisional; for the Government an Parliament are committed to the principle of a popul referendum before the adoption of the final draft.

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According to the course of procedure recommende by the National Convention, the Convention will re assemble at Bloemfontein in May, to consider amen ments suggested by the Legislatures, and to arrange final draft. In June this final draft was to be submitte to the Legislatures of the four colonies, in order the they might pass the addresses in favour of union; an as soon as possible thereafter, a delegation was to pr ceed to England to afford information to the Imperi Government and facilitate the passing of the Act. Br apparently, in Natal the ordeal of the referendum is precede the second submission to the Legislature; this may lead to delay. If the delay should be seri and still more if the Constitution should be rej by that colony, it is probable that the other three co will proceed without her, so as to secure action Imperial Parliament before the end of the present se As it is expected that the present session will be prolong far into the autumn, there is good reason for hoping before its close, a Bill, resembling in its main feature the draft South Africa Act, will be passed into law.

Art. 18.-THE CENTENARY OF

REVIEW.

"THE QUARTERLY

1. The Quarterly Review. Volumes I-XCIII. Murray, Feb. 1809-June 1853.

London:

2. Memoir and Correspondence of John Murray. By Samuel Smiles. Two vols. London: Murray, 1891. 3. Memoir of William Gifford. By himself. (Prefixed to the Translation of Juvenal.) London, 1802. 4. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott. [By J. G. Lockhart.] Ten vols. Edinburgh: Cadell, 1839. 5. The Correspondence and Diaries of the Right Hon. John Wilson Croker. Edited by L. J. Jennings. Three vols. London: Murray, 1884.

6. The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart. By Andrew Lang. Two vols. London: Nimmo, 1897. And other works.

It was a critical moment in the history of Great Britain when, in February 1809, the first number of the 'Quarterly Review' claimed the attention of an anxious and preoccupied public. At the Congress of Erfurt, in the preceding autumn, Napoleon's star had reached its zenith. The world appeared to lie at the conqueror's feet. In alliance with a complaisant Tsar, his power extended from the Sound to the Straits of Messina, from the Tagus to the Dardanelles, and even threatened our dominion on the Ganges. Against this gigantic Empire England alone of the great Powers still stood erect; but the struggle upon which she had entered, unaided, nearly five years before, seemed well-nigh hopeless. It is true that to us at this day, looking back across the interval of a hundred years, the signs of decay are already visible. In Spain Napoleon's ambition had overleapt itself; and the popular rising of 1808 marked the beginning of that revolt of the nations, in place of the governments, to which he was eventually to succumb.

But, though the prescient brain of Pitt had long before perceived that Spain would be the cause of his great enemy's overthrow, neither there nor elsewhere was much encouragement to be found at the outset of 1809. Baylen and Vimiero had merely brought Napoleon in triumph to Madrid; and Moore's audacious raid had just ended in his death at the battle of Corunna.

In

this dark hour, when general discouragement prevailed, Canning signed a treaty of alliance with the representatives of the Spanish people; but within a month Saragossa had fallen, Soult had occupied Oporto, and Victor had reduced the south of Spain. Then came a momentary gleam of hope. The Austrian declaration of war drew Napoleon away from the Peninsula; and at Aspern he met with his first serious reverse. But the gleam was short-lived. Wagram re-established the French ascendancy in central Europe. Wellesley's dearly-bought victory at Talavera was followed by his retreat to the coast. The resources of England in men and money were wasted in the futile Walcheren expedition. At home, too, things were unpromising. The spirit of Pitt had passed to no successor. The Portland Cabinet was divided in itself, and discredited by grave charges against some of its most prominent members. The nation at large, suffering grievously from the Continental Blockade, was by no means sure that the game was worth the candle. Such were the gloomy conditions under which the 'Quarterly Review' was produced, and which accompanied the first year of its existence.

It must not be forgotten that the Opposition, though weak in Parliament, was by no means inarticulate outof-doors. The Whig party, the party of domestic reform, had sympathised with the French Revolution, at least in its early days of large hope and humanitarian enthusiasm. It had opposed the war with France; it opposed, or at any rate shrank from, a continuance of the struggle, even when the victorious Republic had become a still more aggressive Empire. Like the Tory party, it had recently lost its leader. Fox, a few months after Pitt's decease, had followed his great rival to the grave; and, like Pitt, Fox had left no successor comparable with him in parliamentary experience and prestige. But his fol lowers were not discouraged; and there was growing up, especially in the north, a group of young men, able, eager, and eloquent, determined to keep alight the torch of Whiggism, albeit temporarily dimmed by the lurid flames of war. Moreover, it must be confessed that, in 1809, the Tory party, though it numbered among leaders such men as Perceval and Canning, offered, in its obstinate resistance to internal reform, its military

its

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