OCR Rendition - approximate

352 Discussion. needed to prevent their ruining the health and rettarding the material welfare of the native community. (e.) To secure all these objects an equitable form of civilized taxation is needed, sufficient to meet the expenses of administration. DISCUSSION. Mr. JOHN EVANS expressed his thanks for the Paper, in which, besides the immediate subject-matter, there were so many interesting details with regard to the various races now occupying South Africa. He was glad to hear the references to the practice of ancient Rome, with regard to the foreign countries brought under her sway. It was, indeed, her special gift "to spare the subject and repress the proud." He could not, however, quite agree with the author in placing the ancient Britons, when first brought in contact with Rome, on the same level as any of the natives of South Africa when first exposed to European influences. Long before the time of Julius C esar the Britons had commercial relations with Gaul, and for nearly two centuries they had pos. sessed a coinage. During the ninety years which elapsed between the invasion of Julius and that of Claudius, they made further progress in civilization, became acquainted with letters, and built important towns. It was also to be borne in mind that, though foreigners, most of the nations who came under the Roman dominion were practically members of the same great Aryan family, and did not differ from them in anything like the same degree as the coloured races of South Africa do from Europeans. He quite agreed with the general views expressed by Sir Bartle Frere at the end of his Paper-but to ensure the progress of civilization among those brought, in contact with our colonists, not only was peace a necessity, but time during which new ideas might take root. It was to be regretted that so much mischief was frequently done by the force of bad example, but still the careful administration of justice in a Colony, the obedience to law, and the general regard for morality, could not but have their effect. A firm adherence to fixed principles, and an absence of vacillation and change when treating with savage nations, appeared to him to be of the highest importance, and looking at the widespread influence of this country throughout the world, he trusted it might always be for good, and that Britain bad yet a glorious mission of civilization before her. Mr. F. GALTON would refer first to the purely ethnological part of the memoir, which dwelt upon the difficulty of defining the Bantu race. He thought that ethnologists were apt to look upon race as something more definite than it really was. He presumed it meant no more than the average of the characteristics of all the persons who were supposed to belong to the race, and this average was continually varying. The popular notion seemed