sequence of its connexion with the enterprises of Dr. Livingstone and others. Sir Bartle Frere's mission on behalf of the British Government to the Ruler of Zanzibar, in 1874, for the purpose of inducing him to put down the slave trade, which resulted in an acquiescent treaty on the Seyyed's part, was the proximate occasion of this friendly visit, the principal occurrences of which will be found noted in our Chronicle. : CHAPTER IV. Colonial and Indian History-Petition of Chiefs on Gold Coast-South Africa: Natal Lord Carnarvon's proposed Conference: Opposition to it in Cape Colony Mr. Froude and Mr. Molteno-Delagoa Bay award-Congo River expedition-India: Baroda inquiry: Deposition of the Guicowar-Death of Lord Hobart-Report on Indian Famine-Difficulties with Burmah-Murder of Mr. Margary-Sir Douglas Forsyth's mission-Negotiations with China: Threatenings of war-Sir Thomas Wade's ultimatum-Malay outbreak-New Guinea annexation question-Australian prosperity-Change of ministry at Victoria-Fiji-Death of Commodore Goodenough-Canada: Speech of Lord Dufferin Riots at Montreal--Mr. Forster's remarks on Colonies. WE turn now to take a survey of Colonial and Indian affairs. The Queen's proclamation against slavery, issued at the close of the Ashantee War, did not meet with unqualified acquiescence on the part of the petty sovereigns of the Guinea Coast. Early this year they addressed a petition to Governor Strahan, together with a memorial to the Queen, complaining that the "Protectorate was going to absolute ruin through the abolition of the old custom. The wording of these documents, showing a somewhat remarkable acquaintance with the English language and ways, led the Governor to conjecture that they were the composition of a few educated Fantee slaveholders of the region, who were seeking to get up an agitation for their own purposes. To this conjecture Lord Carnarvon alluded in his reply to the Governor, adding, "In their personal relations with you the kings and chiefs appear to have throughout shown a proper sense of the very great benefits conferred upon them by the Queen in the rescue of their country from invasion, and themselves from slavery and death; and I at once absolve them from any conscious participation in so ill-advised and unworthy a sentiment as that contained in the seventeenth paragraph of the petition to the Queen, in which they are made to say that the late war was not a war of their own, and that the British forces fought more to uphold and maintain the dignity of the British Empire than in defence of the people of the Gold Coast.' Those words will at once be generally repudiated, but they unfortunately represent too correctly that lamentable want of patriotism and public morality which have in times past characterised too many of the Gold Coast natives, and have rendered it so difficult either to govern or to defend the Fantees. You will cause it to be known that the Queen has received the petition addressed to Her Majesty with pain and surprise; that Her Majesty again commands you to advance steadily and firmly, but with all due consideration for any special circumstances, in the course upon which you have entered; and that she relies confidently upon the good feeling of the kings and chiefs, of which renewed evidence has been given at your late interview with them, and upon their cheerful consent on behalf of their people to such sacrifices as may be involved in the liberation of as many slaves and pawns as do not desire to remain in their present service." The agitation soon died away; and so far the abolition of slavery on the Gold Coast seems to have worked successfully. Our South African colonies this year occupied a good share of public attention. It will be remembered that when Bishop Colenso left England at the close of 1874, he said that he had received satisfactory assurance from Lord Carnarvon as to the views and intentions entertained by Government respecting the affairs of the Caffre chief Langalibalele, whose wrongs the chivalrous prelate had thought it incumbent on himself to represent at head quarters. Lord Carnarvon's despatch, dated December 3, was to the following effect:-" Langalibalele justly deserved punishment, but the sentence passed upon him punishes him for treason, sedition, and rebellion, and is, in my judgment, far too severe, and I have felt it my duty to advise the Queen that it should be mitigated. . . . . Every care should be taken to obviate the hardships and mitigate the severities which, assuming the offence of the chief and his tribe to be even greater than I have estimated it, have far exceeded the limit of justice. . . . . Should it be found necessary to keep any members of the Amahlubi tribe to forced labour, they must be employed on public works, and not assigned to private masters. With respect to the Putili tribe, I have in their case also expressed my opinion that no sufficient cause has been shown for removing them from their location. . . . . Their losses cannot, I fear, now be entirely replaced or repaired, but as far as reparation can be made without lowering the influence and endangering the authority of the local government, it must be done. . . . . I am deeply impressed with the necessity of maintaining, in every legitimate way, the prestige of the Government in the eyes of the vast number of natives who inhabit and who surround the colony of Natal, and I am ready to admit that when once a tribe has refused to obey the orders of the Governor, and has resisted the force sent against it, it may become necessary that it should lose its independent existence as a tribe, and that the chief should be removed from his chieftainship; but inordinate punishments inflicted on the guilty, and, still more, punishment inflicted on those to whom no substantial guilt can be imputed, must tend rather to weaken than to increase the credit of the Government and its power for good." A proclamation was then issued, exhorting the tribes to obedience, while at the same time it was intimated to Sir Benjamin Pine, the Governor of Natal, that he must resign the administration of the colony. In the interim, before the arrival of a regularly appointed successor to the outgoing Governor, it was decided that Sir Garnet Wolseley, the victorious commander in the late Ashantee War, should be entrusted to administer the affairs of the colony, Lord Carnarvon giving as his reason for this step that the various difficulties attending the position of the natives and settlers in Natal at the present moment might be best dealt with by a military officer of special experience sent out as a Government agent for the purpose. Among the subjects on which Lord Carnarvon desired more particularly to have Sir Garnet's opinion, he notified, (1.) The defence of the colony generally, the best mode not only of guarding against those individual collisions between colonists and natives which may be a source of danger, but of preventing any rising among the natives, whether local or extending to the tribes throughout the colony, or in combination with other tribes or nations beyond the frontier; the course to be taken for extinguishing or restricting to a limited district anv native disaffection or rebellion immediately upon its declaring itself, and the prevention of panic in such event among the white population. (2.) The strength and composition of the police force that should be maintained in the colony, and the districts in which the principal police stations should be placed, bearing in mind that this force would have to discharge the two-fold duty of preventing and ensuring the punishment of ordinary_crime, and preserving the peace and safety of the country. (3.) The difficult question of the supply of fire-arms and ammunition to the natives. The policy pursued by Lord Carnarvon was subsequently attacked in the House of Lords by Lord Grey, who maintained that Sir Benjamin Pine ought to have been supported as against Langalibalele and the pro-native party; but Lord Carnarvon's reply on the occasion was spirited and effective, and Lord Cairns' judicial remarks gave additional force to his case. In fact, the reasons for believing that Sir Benjamin Pine's view of the socalled "outbreak" was wrong were so strongly represented that Lord Grey nowhere ventured plainly to controvert them. It might have been, of course, that the Kaffirs were flying from Natal to their mystericus allies, the Basuto chiefs, beyond the border, and intended to return with them in arms, but there was not the faintest evidence to prove it. Indeed, the charge of treasonable communications with outside chiefs was abandoned at the trial, while, on the contrary, every known fact pointed to the conclusion that the Kaffir exodus was the result of pure fear, as had been the original disobedience of Langalibalele to the summons requiring him to appear before the Lieutenant-Governor at Maritzburg. No doubt this was No doubt this was an offence to begin with— whether, as Lord Grey called it, a "serious crime according to Kaffir law" or not-and an offence for which the chief might have been punished, but it was not this for which he actually was punished, but for something else which was gratuitously inferred from his disobedience; and this mistaken inference entered into and vitiated all the subsequent proceedings. It was the supposed necessity of securing the conviction of a leader of rebellion at all hazards which dictated the mockery, first, of a trial before an improperly constituted court, then the hybrid law applied to his case, the record of a plea of not guilty as a plea of guilty, the concession of an advocate who was only to be allowed to speak in mitigation of punishment, and, finally, the illegal sentence. It was because all these results followed from a totally unsupported and, on the facts, improbable inference, that Lord Carnarvon took the course on which he decided. But to improve the existing relations between the settlers and natives, the first thing requisite was to carry a measure of legislative reform; and this Sir Garnet Wolseley was charged to introduce without delay. For nearly twenty years Natal had been governed by a Lieutenant-Governor and a Legislative Council, five of the members of Council being members ex officio, appointed by the Colonial Office, and the others, fifteen in number, being elected by the constituencies into which the colony is divided. The elected members easily preponderated in all divisions, unless when they might happen to be divided among themselves, and they had sometimes exercised their power so as to declare the appointed members disqualified from voting on particular questions on grounds which would not bear the test of examination. This being the Constitution of the colony, Sir Garnet Wolseley asked the Legislative Council to support a Reform Bill which should increase the number of appointed members by ten, so that in future the Council might be composed of fifteen elected and fifteen nonelected members. It was a Bill distinctly calculated to increase the power of the Executive, and thereby, it was considered, to improve the chances of equal justice for the native tribes, who had been shown by recent events to be too much at the mercy of panics taken up on insufficient grounds by white settlers. It had to submit to some modifications in the sense of the colonists, but was substantially passed. Its provisions were explained by Lord Carnarvon in a subsequent discussion on the subject in the English House of Lords, when Lord Blachford having expressed as his view that Natal ought to have been reduced to the condition of a Crown colony, that the present charter contained a clause of revocation which would have enabled the Government to effect the change. regularly and legally, and that the elective majority of the Legislative Council had not been fortunate in its conduct either of domestic affairs or of the relations between the colony and the natives, the Colonial Secretary admitted that it might possibly become necessary for the Crown to exercise its undoubted preroga tive by undertaking the government of the colony, but that in the meantime he had obtained the consent of the Assembly to a change. in the Constitution which might perhaps prove to be sufficient. Eight nominated members of Council were now substituted for the same number of elected members, and, although there would still be fifteen elected members and thirteen nominees, there might be reason to hope that the majority would be reasonable and not objectionably unanimous. The elected members are required to possess a property qualification; and Lord Carnarvon relied on feelings of jealousy which are said to exist between the coast districts and the upper country. The misgovernment of the former Council had brought the financial affairs of the colony into confusion, and had stopped the progress of immigration. Lord Carnarvon agreed with Lord Blachford that responsible government was not suited to the present circumstances of Natal; but he held that it was desirable, where Englishmen are concerned, to allow as much constitutional freedom as was compatible with safety. The Legislature had, at the instance of the Secretary of State and of Sir Garnet Wolseley, made considerable concessions, and Lord Carnarvon anticipated that a Legislature almost equally balanced might under proper management work well. "If unfortunately," he said, "it should be found after all that the Legislature is incapable of dealing with the questions which will come before it, then, and then only, will be the time to tighten the knot, and to take greater powers than are now exercised." Sir Garnet Wolseley carried out his temporary administration with great vigour and success. After his amended Bill had passed the Legislative Council, he spent six weeks on a laborious oxwaggon journey through the country districts of the colony; then returned to Maritzburg to propose some useful measures on taxes and railways, and other matters affecting its welfare, and on the 3rd of September set sail again for England, leaving the government of Natal in the hands of Sir Henry Bulwer. The Natal business was one of special emergency arising out of local complications; but Lord Carnarvon's legislation for South Africa embraced a wider scope than the boundaries of that colony. He had long conceived the idea of introducing a Federal constitution into the congeries of South African settlements, analogous to that which had been established in the "Dominion of Canada; and to carry out his intentions he now selected as his semi-official representative a gentleman hitherto eminent in a different department from that of practical politics, the distinguished historical writer, Mr. James Anthony Froude, who accordingly quitted England in the early summer to enter upon his mission. "The British colonies in South Africa," says a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette, "are three in number. The Cape Colony, divided into the Eastern and Western Provinces, is the largest, |