heard, he throws his assegai in the direction in which they are to raid, and this year, as the year before, he sent them to the eastto collect what he calls his taxes, really to raid the poor Mashonas. I have heard him myself, when his young regiments have come up and clamoured for the white men's blood, say, "If you want to fight the white man go down to Kimberley; there are plenty of them there; but leave these who have come to visit me; neither take my old men with you, because I do not want to be king without a people, for none of you will return." In fact, I think he did a good deal to stave off the inevitable collision. There has been a good deal of method in most of his dealings with the white man. It must be remembered that he began his reign by granting concessions. In 1870 he granted a concession to Baines, which for twentythree years has been impossible to work. Now the same game has been tried in Mashonaland, for which he granted a similar concession, and at Victoria this year his pecple overstepped all bounds. They not only wiped out the Mashonaland kraals, but rushed right through the streets of Victoria. The white men determined these raids must cease once for all. I may say that the older Matabele have been dissatisfied with these proceedings for some years past, and in 1885 I remember hearing many of the old men say, "If we are to go to war again we will feign sickness." My reason for mentioning these things is because, in the settlement of the country, I do not believe there is any necessity-nor do I believe there is any intention-to drive the Matabele as a nation out of the country. They are excellent workers when they like to work and have no fighting to think of. They have been found to be good workers at Kimberley and at Johannesburg, and if they will work at that distance from home they will, when this military organisation is broken up, work much more readily in their own country. The difficulty seems to be, not there, but here. A certain party seems fearful of undertaking what are called fresh responsibilities. In 1885 we protected the people to the west of the Transvaal-the Bechuanas-but Matabeleland we merely declared to be within the sphere of British influence, thereby shutting one door on the land-grabbing instincts of the Boers, but leaving open the door northwards, where the prospects were much more alluring. A commission was sent up in 1885, and thereby the eyes of all commercial people here were turned thitherwards. But our Government feared to take the matter in hand, and left it to commercial enterprise to undertake the opening up of that country. The "Little England" party-a party so named, I sup

pose, because they would wish to be-little England-must admit that to have allowed the Boers to occupy Mashonaland and Matabeleland would have been disastrous to us, and they surely ought to be thankful that the taxpayer of this country has been spared the expense of protection or possible conquest of this new outlet for our trade. Never has an enterprise been undertaken at a smaller cost and carried through so quickly as this occupation of Mashonaland and Matabeleland. As a great colonising and commercial Empire, our first impulse and, I should think, the first duty of our Government should be to extend the ramifications of our trade to every corner of the earth. The Germans are leading the way in many a country now, and pushing their goods hard enough, and we ought to open up every part of the colonisable world for our overteeming population. Here is a fine country at a high elevation; I will not say entirely healthy, because no new country is entirely healthy until after occupation and cultivation; but there is no doubt the plateau of Mashonaland will ultimately be exceedingly healthy. At Salisbury at present there are sixty women and about forty children in good health. The missionaries in Matabeleland have brought up their families to the second generation. It has been said our conception is right of might in regard to Matabeleland. I maintain that is not so. This right of might has been exercised in the most cruel manner over the poor Mashonas by the Matabele for the last fifty years. Our position represents the power of right-the disintegration of barbarism and the opening up of one of the fairest portions of the world to colonisation and the blessings of religion.

Major FRANK JOHNSON: I am sure we have all listened with great interest and pleasure to the able Paper read by Mr. Colquhoun, and I would like to say for myself that I heartily endorse practically everything that he has said. In making such endorsement I speak as one who has been specially interested for the last six or seven years in Mashonaland and Matabeleland, and who has been resident in both countries both before and after the occupation by the Company. At the commencement of the few remarks I propose making, I should like to bear testimony to the great work Mr. Colquhoun did in the early days of Mashonaland. I refer particularly to the treaty he effected with the Manica chief Umtasa. No statue has yet been erected to Mr. Colquhoun in any of the public squares or parks of Salisbury, but he erected a statue to himself when he concluded that treaty, which will be far grander and more lasting to his memory than any statue, even of the finest marble, could possibly be. It was

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a treaty important not only to Mashonaland, but to the Empire; a treaty made in the nick of time, and one which saved a most important piece of country to England. Many administrators would have waited until roads had been made to Manica, but Mr. Colquhoun saw that no time was to be lost, and he made a journey of over 200 miles through a country which, for the greater part of the distance, had never seen a white face before. Turning to the Paper I find that Mr. Colquhoun says that the future prosperity of Mashonaland (in common with all mining countries) "depends entirely upon two things-efficient transport and sufficient labour." In that I agree, but he goes on: "Fortunately Mr. Rhodes' past record in dealing with difficult situations warrants the belief that he will successfully overcome the present one." Now, I claim to be second to none in admiration of Mr. Rhodes, and his power to overcome difficulties, but I do not think he has any difficulty to overcome here. I am sorry to say the Mashonas as manual labourers are practically useless; but we have excellent labourers in the Matabele, and from the mining and commercial point of view I regret the loss of the 2,000 odd Matabele killed in the late war very much. In reference to the question of transport I may mention that when I have come down from Mashonaland to the Transvaal, even within recent years, I have been asked how gold-mining was going on in Mashonaland, and when I have been giving particulars about reefs I have almost invariably been cut short with the remark, "What on earth is the good of that? You can't make gold-mining pay there at double shovels a yield." Now I say we are in every bit as good a position as regards transport as Johannesburg, and, as a matter of fact, Salisbury is only 365 miles from the coast-fifty miles by river, 105 by rail, and 210 by coach. The present cost of goods is £15 per ton, while about nine-tenths of the machinery employed in Johannesburg was carried up from the coast at, I think, from £22 to £25 per ton. A good many people say the Beira Railway is only a plaything; but I think it is everything Mashonaland requires for the present. As to the extension of the line beyond the railway, personally I am not very keen about its being pushed on at present, for the simple reason that, although a 20 lb. railway is quite good enough for the early stages of Mashonaland's development, it will not of course be heavy enough for later requirements, and I think it is not good policy to spend money in building a railway which in a few years will have to be pulled up and replaced with heavier metals. Johannesburg was developed when the nearest railway was 800 miles distant; so surely we can develop Mashonaland from the

existing terminus of the light line near Chimoras, only 220 miles from Salisbury, and so justify the construction of a permanent 3 ft. 6 in. gauge heavy railway. I cannot agree with the opinion that the East Coast route is merely supplementary. On the contrary, I say the East Coast route is the route, being 365 miles long, as against 1,670 from the Cape to Salisbury. It is the overland route which is the supplemental one. I admit that the East Coast route is unhealthy for those who have to build and work the railway, but that cannot make any difference to the passengers. In regard to the rainy season I come across people who say-"You Mashonaland men are always saying when the rains are over you will do so and so," and they naturally ask what sort of a mining country it is if you can only work six months in the year. It should be remembered that mining in Mashonaland is at present only in the development stage, and even that is at present carried on under great difficulties and without steam pumps; but when we get to the regular stage of permanent mining we shall be no more interfered with by the rains. than they are in Johannesburg. As to gold prospects in Mashonaland, I can only say that when I first saw the country in 1887 I was pretty positive it was a good mining country; I saw it again in 1890 and was more positive; and now, when I have just returned, I feel absolutely certain as to its future. In the dry season of 1890 we had, I think, about five shovels and two prospecting pans in the whole country to work with, so that we were short of tools. In 1891 we had money but no experience. In the dry season of 1892 we had not the money but had got the experience. After that we had got the money and the experience, but we had no railway, and we could not get the machinery into the country. Now we have the money, the experience, and the railway, and then Providence sent us the war, which has put everything back. But I venture to assert that when this war is over, and after the coming year's rains, Mashonaland will take its place as a mining country. To come and tell you that Johannesburg is not in it with Mashonaland would be childish talk, for Johannesburg is unique, and the world. has never seen such a mining district before. Johannesburg only began to produce gold in 1880 or 1881, and where did the world's gold supply come from in previous years? California, with its annual output of nearly ten millions sterling, was not condemned because it was a quartz country and not a Johannesburg. You did not say Australia was no good as a mining country because its gold was produced from quartz and not from the peculiar conglomerate formation of "the Randt," and I would ask you to remember this, and not

to condemn Mashonaland as a mining country of great possibilities simply because we cannot show you a Johannesburg there.

Mr. GEORGE CAWSTON: I have spent some hours in trying to find something to say about the Paper-something to discuss-but I can find no mistake, except, perhaps, on the first page, where Mashonaland seems to take a more prominent place than Matabeleland. Why are we in Mashonaland at the present time? It is because we have rights over the whole of Matabeleland. You might as well talk of Ireland and Great Britain as about Mashonaland and Matabeleland. It was not necessary to make any remark about this, but it gives me the opportunity of saying a few words about the wonderful expedition which has just been completed. The best authorities in this country said that it would require 5,000 men, a year's campaign, and perhaps two millions of money to break up the military despotism of the Matabele. As a matter of fact, the expedition has been accomplished in a month with 800 men, and at a cost of less than £50,000. These men marched through an unknown country direct from Victoria; the roads were not known, and the only thing that was known was that a trader who had gone from Bulawayo to Victoria had taken about two months on the journey. One thing said against this expedition is that there has been so small a loss of European life. If we had lost half our men, and finally gained our ends, everybody would have said that the leaders were entitled to rewards and honours; but because we have achieved the result with the loss of only ten lives we are blamed. I can assure you we are as proud of Rhodes as the Germans are of Bismarck, of Jameson as they are of Moltke, and of Forbes as they are of the Red Prince; and I believe that had they been acting in those larger spheres they would have done as well as in this smaller one. Of Mr. Rhodes I need say nothing here. History will, I am convinced, tell us that he has done more for the extension and consolidation of our Empire than any other man during the last fifty years. But Dr. Jameson is not so well known even to the Company. He was a physician practising at Kimberley. Mr. Rhodes asked him to go up to Mashonaland. He went up with the first expedition. It was necessary to go through what is now Portuguese territory, and he marched from Salisbury down to the mouth of the Limpopo River, a distance of 500 miles, through a feverish country, finally coming down to Capetown expecting to lie up for six or seven weeks. Trouble arose in Mashonaland, and Mr. Rhodes asked him to go up there. He went at once-full of fever—and he has been there ever since.

Of Forbes those who