Colony but of South Africa generally, the first steps must I think be taken by the governments of the different districts.
The total population of the Colony is 720,984. Of these less than a third, 209,136, are represented as living on agriculture which in such a Colony should support more than half the people. The numbers given include of course men women and children. Of this latter number, less than a third again, or 60,458, are represented as being of white blood,—or Dutch and English combined. I believe about two-thirds of these to be Dutch,—though as to that I can only give an opinion. From this it would result that the residue, perhaps about 20,000 who are of English descent, consists of the farmers themselves and their families. Taking four to a family, this would give only 5,000 English occupiers of land. There is evidently no place for an English agricultural labourer in a Colony which shows such a result after seventy years of English occupation. And indeed there is much other evidence proving the same fact. Let the traveller go where he will he will see no English-born agricultural labourer in receipt of wages. The work, if not done by the farmer or his family, is with but few exceptions done by native hands. Should an Englishman be seen here or there in such a position he will be one who has fallen abnormally in the scale, and will, as an exception, only prove the rule. If a man have a little money to commence as a farmer he may thrive in the Cape Colony,—providing that he can accommodate himself to the peculiarities of the climate. As a navvy he may earn good wages on the railways, or as a miner at the copper mines. But, intending to be an
