OCR Rendition - approximate

346 SIR H. B. FRERE.-On the Lazvs afecting the In many parts of the old Colony this class of natives has acquired property in lands and houses, and their conduct would often be a credit to any class of yeomanry or peasant proprietors in our own country. Mixed up with the Hottentots, are often the descendants of slaves of African origin. The liberty given to them half a century ago was doubtless a fatal gift to many of the less provident and civilized of this class. But as a body they have prospered and improved. I may here draw attention to the great -and manifest improvement apparent outside the Colony in emancipated slaves, after a few years of freedom and civilized training. I have had several opportunities of inspecting a batch of slaves in India and Eastern Africa soon after their capture, and of witnessing the gradual improvement which has taken place during subsequent years of freedom, and of exposure to various civilizing influences. There is far more than mere improvement in physical condition. The type of man is visibly changed, and assimilated to that of superior races in the grade of civilization. I have never seen any limit to the improvement of which the Kaffir race is capable, nor-any reason to suppose that there is any limit beyond which improvement is impossible or even doubtful. The touching biography of Tyo Soga depicts, perhaps, an extreme case ; but I saw and heard enough in the country of his birth to feel assured that the picture is not overcharged nor incorrect, and that this was not an exceptional instance. To raise a people requires something more than a multiplication of individual cases of improvement, but there are no impossibilities to the race to which he belonged, and in which men of natural capacity equal to his are not uncommon. What, then, is required to give to such men a fair chance of improving themselves, and of helping to raise and improve their fellows ? 1. First there is a need of a strong and stable Imperial Government able to protect life and property, and to enforce law and ensure a reasonable certainty of peace, not depending on the life or the will of a single chief. Such a Government was unknown to South African history before the advent of Europeans. It has always existed more or less in every English Colony. Such rule as the Romans always aimed at, and the English have been wont hitherto to secure to their subjects, is the first requisite to preserve the numbers and improve the conditions of the native races. 2. Freedom from slavery, and equality in civil rights before the law is essential to any permanent improvement of native races.