Before proceeding with the Conference in Natal, I return to the Colony to ask again if it adheres to its refusal. In doing so I was endeavouring to respond as it deserved to the warm and loyal feeling which had been so signally displayed, and I decline to admit that on this account I can be justly reproached with the name of an agitator; I have not been connected with any party in this Colony, and I have no intention of connecting myself with any party. So long as there was any hope of a favourable answer, I negotiated, as I was bound to do, entirely with the responsible Ministers of this country. It was only when these Ministers appeared inexorable that I was constrained to ask the people whether they consented to the action of their representatives.1

The conduct and self-importance of this Imperial emissary would be ludicrous were it not for the serious consequences likely to follow from such action, more especially when we remember it was formally brought to the notice of the Secretary of State by the Cape Ministry, and received that official's formal and emphatic approval.2

Finding the Colony in possession of responsible government and a Parliament, when it appears that neither the Ministers nor Parliament were ready at once to accept certain proposals, Mr. Froude passed by both and went from platform to platform to appeal to the people. It was surely the first time the Imperial Government had so used its influence, and it is to be hoped it will be the last. One of the most unpleasant and dangerous features in this campaign was the persistent manner in which Mr. Froude allowed himself to talk of the loyalty of those who support his views and the disloyalty of the Ministers who do not. Thus conducting the discussion of the matter so as to make it a dispute between the Cape Parliament and the Colonial Office, and fixing the print of disloyalty upon the Colonial Government and its supporters. He distributes his praise and blame among the loyal' and 'disloyal,' and describes the pleasure of the English nation in receiving such an account

'The italics are the author's.

2 See despatch of January 24, 1876, I. P., C-1399,

p. 87.

of the hearty loyalty of the community, and this, in the Colony where the Queen is represented by the Governor of her own appointment and clothed with her authority. Can it be conceived as proper or possible for any person fully authorised to express the sentiments of the Imperial Government to divide the population into loyal and disloyal merely because of a difference of opinion on a question of great complexity and involved in local party opposition? Could it be contended, when the Colony was maintaining its opinions in a regular and constitutional manner, that a stranger professing to speak in the name of the Imperial Government should go up and down the country dividing it into loyalists and anti-loyalists.

Lord Blachford, as Sir Frederick Rogers, had been Under-Colonial Secretary from 1860 to 1871; he had therefore a wide colonial experience, and was in a position to give a valuable judgment on these questions. He writes:

As between independent countries, it is, we believe, well understood that Governments treat only with each other. Of course an Ambassador may properly accept hospitality from persons of all parties, and express his opinions in private. But if the Russian Ambassador had 'stirred it' at anti-Turkish meetings, and made speeches to his English audiences against the Ministerial policy, he would soon have ceased to reside in London. Now, colonies possessing responsible government expect and their comparative weakness increases their right to expect the same kind of dealing. They have a right to expect that the Parliament and Ministry which they have chosen to conduct their affairs shall, by the Government of the mother country, be taken to represent them, and that British Ministers-who can always make their sentiments fully known by publication in England, or by communication with the Colonial Government-shall not attempt to outflank or undercut that Government by direct appeals to the people of the Colony.

It is clear what mischief would follow if a Secretary of State thought himself at liberty to send out accredited agents to ally themselves with this or that party, and to prevail on them to support this or that Imperial object in opposition to their own chosen authorities. A momentary advantage may be gained by

thus organising what used to be called a 'British party.' But such detestable success-as detestable, we are sure, to Lord Carnarvon as to ourselves-would be gained at the expense of all that is wholesome or cordial in the relation between the Home and Colonial Governments, and in particular by the loss of confidence now felt that controversies will be carried on by direct means, and according to settled laws of warfare.

Now this understanding it is which Mr. Froude is accused of violating, and, in fact, did violate. He put himself forward as the accredited exponent of the views of the British Government. He styled himself, we are told, the unworthy representative of Lord Carnarvon,' and in this capacity thanked a public meeting for the splendid support which it had rendered to her Majesty's Secretary of State.' Occupying, both from the nature of the case and in his own opinion, this representative position, he recommended Lord Carnarvon's policy, not by a written representation of his views, addressed once for all to whom it might concern, but by the process rudely described as 'stumping'-that is, by a series of speeches made in different parts of the country, and, in the opinion. of his accusers, by speeches calculated to revive certain sectional animosities between Dutch and English, east and west (we are trying to look at their story as they see it themselves), which, since the establishment of responsible government, local legislation was in a way to efface. To represent all this as a 'trespass on official etiquette' does not at all convey the real nature of the charge. What the Imperial representative seems to have done was to violate publicly and perseveringly a constitutional obligation which the colonists had a right to view as one of the essential safeguards of constitutional right.'

On the occasion of the opening of a railway at Uitenhage where Mr. Merriman, a member of the Ministry, was present, Mr. Paterson and the supporters of Mr. Froude also attended in large numbers from Port Elizabeth, and when Mr. Merriman attempted to speak he was received with uproar and shouted down. Mr. Froude himself had to retire, and the proceedings were typical of the confusion that was likely to be brought about by his conduct. Even he appeared to appreciate this incident, and ceased addressing any more meetings. According to his own account, in his 1 Edinburgh Review, April 1877. The authorship of this article is accepted by Lord Blachford in his Letters, pp. 376, 377.

VOL. I.

EE

report after the scene at Uitenhage, the result flashed across his mind: 'I dared not make myself the occasion of further reproach to the Imperial Government.'' All this time Lord Carnarvon said not a word; he permitted Mr. Froude to do as he pleased, and when formally appealed to by the Ministry he approved his actions completely.

Mr. Froude had written to the Governor, demanding as a right to see all the official documents and papers, as the agent of the Imperial Government.' We have seen by his letter to the Mayor of Grahamstown that he had declared himself a representative of Lord Carnarvon and also of the British nation. And we have further the fact that most important changes in the government of the country were announced by Mr. Froude before the High Commissioner had been in any way informed of them. It was thus that Mr. Southey's supersession in the govern ment of Griqualand West was made known long previous to the official announcement being received, and Sir Owen Lanyon's appointment was announced in a similar manner. He had now condemned every Imperial official from the High Commissioner downwards and the Parliament and Premier as well. There is a striking parallel between this emissary of the Imperial Government and those officials (or, as they were termed, spies) of whom Sir George Cornewall Lewis tells us :

In later times the Roman Emperor employed certain agents (styled 'Agentes in rebus') to visit the provinces and furnish the supreme Government with information respecting their condition. These officers were moveable and were not connected with any separate department in Rome. They appeared to have been considered in the odious light of spies and informers, and they are accused of having ruined persons in the remote provinces by false accusations.2

It was indeed a curious and unprecedented state of affairs. Mr. Froude, as the envoy of the Imperial Govern2 Lewis, on Dependencies, p. 162.

1 I. P., C-1399, p. 79.

ment, had now been for several months past subverting every principle of constitutional and representative rule in the Cape of Good Hope, while the responsible Ministers of the Crown in Cape Town were conducting her Majesty's Government in what seemed to them, as it seemed to an overwhelming majority of the Legislature, to be the right and proper course. And while her Majesty's representative, Sir Henry Barkly, was directing the Government in Griqualand West under circumstances of peculiar difficulty, Mr. Froude was using every means within his reach by stump orations and diplomatic manoeuvring to destroy her Majesty's Government and heap ridicule and contumely on the men who had to bear the brunt of the situation. The Governor had no hesitation in saying to Mr. Molteno that he could not believe that the proceedings of Mr. Froude were assented to by Lord Carnarvon. But what was the fact? Lord Carnarvon was giving his confidence to Mr. Froude to a greater extent even than to the High Commissioner; indeed, relying on Mr. Froude's representations of the position of affairs, he went so far as to reprimand the High Commissioner for not remembering that he was High Commissioner, and, as such, not responsible to the Colonial Ministry for his acts.'

Proceedings of this kind (says Lord Blachford) are sometimes done, disavowed, and rewarded. Lord Carnarvon did not disavow," he did all that he could, and indeed more than he ought to have done, to shield his representative. He eulogised his character, ability, and earnestness; he justified his giving explanations which might appear to him to be necessary at a very critical moment! He also, most unnecessarily, approved his ceasing to give them. He gently vindicated his own position by pointing out that Mr. Froude was 'unfettered in the exercise of his own discretion as to the events of the moment,' but expressed himself fully satisfied that no unconstitutional agitation had been carried on.3

1

Despatch, Jan. 24, 76 C-1399, p. 82.

2 See Parliamentary papers. Correspondence respecting the proposed Conference of Delegates on the Affairs of South Africa, Edinburgh Review, February 1876, pp. 87-90.

3

Edinburgh Review, April 1877.