In considering the pros and cons of the responsible government question,
it must be steadily kept in sight that Natal is not likely to be a
country with a peaceful future. To begin with, she has her native
inhabitants to deal with. To-day they number, say 450,000, fifteen or
twenty years hence they will number a million, or perhaps more. These
men are no longer the docile overgrown children they were twenty years
ago. The lessons of our performances in the Zulu and Boer wars, more
especially the latter, have not been lost upon them, and they
are beginning to think that the white man, instead of being the
unconquerable demigod they thought him, is somewhat of a humbug.
Pharaoh, we know, grew afraid of the Israelites; Natal, with a much
weaker power at command than that of Pharaoh, has got to cope with a
still more dangerous element, and one that cannot be induced to depart
into the wilderness.

And after all what does the power of Natal amount to? Let us be liberal,
and say six thousand men, it is the outside. In the event of a native
rising, or any other serious war, I believe that of this number, at
least two thousand would make themselves scarce. There exists in all
colonies a floating element of individuals who have drifted there for
the purpose of making money, but who have no real affection for the
(temporary) country of their adoption. Their capital is, as a rule,
small and easily realised, and the very last thing that they would think
of doing, would be to engage in a deadly life or death struggle, on
behalf of a land that they only look on as a milch cow, out of which
their object is to draw as much as possible. On the contrary, they would
promptly seek another cow, leaving the old one to the tender mercies of
the butcher.

Their defection would leave some 4000 men to cope with the difficulty,