FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
and the mother country have become closer. As in Australia so in Canada, public opinion is to-day unanimous that the highest aspirations of the Canadian people can be realised within and not without the British Empire:
South Africa.In South Africa the tendency of opinion was until recently in the same direction. Mr. Hofmeyr, the head of the Afrikander Bond, was a leading figure at the first Colonial Conference of 1887, and it was he who brought forward the proposal that the whole Empire should contribute to the maintenance of the Navy by imposing a differential duty of 5 per cent, against non-Imperial goods. At the second Colonial Conference held at Ottawa in 1893, Mr. Hofmeyr again attended as one of the representatives of the Cape Colony, and it is unlikely that he would have done so unless he had represented the feeling of the majority of the Dutch inhabitants, not only of Cape Colony, but of South Africa. But the clouds were looming on the horizon which have burst in the present war. The ideal of a Dutch South African Republic, the realisation of which was only possible through our mistakes has been destroyed by force, and it remains to be seen whether the Dutch will become reconciled to the liberty which every Colonist enjoys under the British flag. In the present state of South Africa it is difficult to gauge the trend of public opinion. The most prevalent feeling amongst British and Dutch alike is probably one of dependence on the Imperial Government; and the best hope for the future lies in the establishment of a Federal Government in South Africa on similar lines to those of the Dominion Government of Canada and the Commonwealth Government of Australia. But for the Jameson raid it is not improbable that the federa-
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