By means of the labour thus obtained,-which proved to be satisfactory, -large areas were laid under cane, and a greater degree of stability was imparted to sugar planting. The experiment having been successful, the planters were desirous of continuing the importation of coolies, but owing to dissensions between the two branches of the legislature, it was suspended for several years, and only recently has been resumed. Another labour market has also been opened, among tribes living near Delagoa Bay. These, not enjoying the same security for property as do those of Natal, are naturally much poorer, and consequently their young men are willing to take service for some years. They are engaged and forwarded by agents appointed by the government, and as they cannot leave when they please, they are eagerly sought by the planters. After a little training, they are found to make tolerably good field servants.

Another product of the coast lands is coffee, which has now for a quarter of a century been grown in Natal, though not to any great extent, as the largest crop has not exceeded a thousand tons. It is a more tender plant than sugar cane, and its returns are very uncertain. In good seasons it yields a large profit, but blight often entirely ruins the prospect of the cultivators.

Arrowroot, cotton, pepper, ginger, and tobacco, are also grown to a small extent. Upon the whole, the portion of the coast lands which is occupied by Europeans is more highly cultivated than any other part of South Africa. Many of the estates are beautifully laid out, the coffee plantations in particular presenting very charming pictures. But some of the best lands are reserved for the use of natives, and a large district in the south is almost unoccupied, owing to the want of easy communication with the seaport.

The commerce of Natal is very considerable for a colony containing only nineteen thousand European inhabitants. The natives purchase some kinds of manufactured goods, but they produce very little that can be sent abroad in return. It is the trade of the interior that largely makes up the imports and exports.

When the colony was taken possession of by the English, there were only a few small shops in Durban, but within two or three years trading stations were to be seen right up to the Drakenberg. Hides, butter, ivory, and ostrich feathers were obtained in barter, and of these the exports of those days consisted almost entirely. About the year 1845 some merchants in England had their attention drawn to the favourable position occupied by Natal, as a gateway through which vast regions might be reached, and from that date goods began to be poured in.

In 1849 the Natal Fire Assurance and Trust Company was established, with a nominal capital of £10,000, which was afterwards increased to £30,000. There being no bank in the colony at the time, the Company undertook to receive money in trust, and also discounted bills, charging from twelve to fifteen per cent. The immigrants under BYRNE's scheme

were then beginning to arrive, and commercial prospects seemed to be particularly bright. In 1854 the Natal Bank was established. Its paid-up capital is now £80,000, which it has power to increase to half a million. In 1857 a great impetus was given to commercial speculation by the granting of large tracts of land to the settlers. In many cases these grants were immediately mortgaged or sold, and the money obtained was invested in goods. Individuals were thus enriched at the expense of the State, and a door was opened to that system of land jobbing which has locked up a large proportion of the resources of the country.

In the exuberant spirits of its youth, Natal was acting the part of a spendthrift. The colony became a centre of speculation, based partly upon the facility with which money could be obtained. For now in rapid succession came branches of the Standard Bank of British South Africa and of the London and South African Bank, the Colonial Bank of Natal, with a capital of £50,000, the Marine Insurance and Trust Company, with a capital of £100,000, the Commercial and Agricultural Bank, with a capital of £50,000, and several other institutions of a similar nature, besides private agencies for the employment of foreign capital. A system prevailed of dealing on credit and by means of notes of hand which the banks readily discounted. The trader who was unwilling to part with his goods for mere promises to pay had to keep them, anything saleable could be had for paper, and that was convertible into coin until the funds of the monetary institutions became exhausted. Discounts, which had been from twelve to fifteen per cent, fell to ten, and then to eight, so keen was the competition between the banks. The character of the business done at this time cannot be better shown than by the following figures:

Imports. Exports.

For the five years ending 31st December, 1849, £ 231,655 £ 61,187

Thus the excess of imports over exports during these twenty years amounted to no less a sum than £2,576,034, or nearly twice the total value of the exports. Making every allowance for money brought by the troops and immigrants into the colony during that time, it is evident that Natal had been living far beyond its means.

The crisis came in 1865. One after another, houses of business surrendered or compromised, until merchants at home became alarmed and stopped further supplies. Numbers of mechanics who had been attracted to the colony were suddenly thrown out of employment, poverty and distress stared very many in the face, and the name of Natal sank low in the estimation of the commercial world.

But the great crash paved the way for the introduction of a better and safer method of conducting business. Henceforth credit was not so easily obtained by men of straw, and when trade rallied again after a time, it was

unaccompanied by the wild speculation of former days. The colony had passed the period of thoughtless extravagance, and was entering upon a term of vigorous, honest life. The customs' returns of the next ten years show the extent of the change:

Imports. Exports. For the five years ending 31st December, 1869, £1,685,854 £1,274,538 1874, 3,860,636

2,988,901

The principal discrepancy of the first term was in 1865, the year of the crisis, and probably the money brought into the colony for investment, together with the diamonds exported during the last term, but not registered at the custom house, would nearly, if not quite, equalize the purchases and payments made. A noticeable feature in these returns is the fact that

within five years the exports have more than doubled.

The discovery of the South African diamond fields was an event of great importance to Natal. It opened a new and excellent market where very high prices were obtained for all kinds of home produce, and enabled the merchants to extend their trade in imported articles. Many of them established branches at the fields, where they competed successfully with others who imported their goods through Algoa Bay or East London, though these had the advantage of much shorter land carriage. Natal coffee and sugar could of course be sold at a good profit cheaper than similar articles brought through the Cape Colony, on which duty had been paid. Trains of waggons laden with farm produce crossed over the Drakenberg and through the Free State to the diamond fields, and took back ready money, thus giving an impetus to legitimate enterprise, both agricultural and commercial. Just as in the Cape Colony, so also in Natal, the progress made since the discovery of the diamond fields has been very much greater than that of previous years.

One of the greatest drawbacks to the prosperity of the colony has been the want of easy and cheap communication with the seaport. Unless when exceptionally high prices can be obtained, as was the case at the diamond fields from 1869 to 1874, the cultivation of the ground in the inland districts is of necessity limited to local requirements, as the cost of conveying produce to the seaport more than absorbs the profit upon its sale. For several years past the colonists have been desirous of seeing lines of rail across the country, and the question as to how such expensive works should be undertaken has been the most prominent one in and out of the Council. In 1873 the Legislature decided to embrace an offer made by Mr. J. W. WELBORNE on behalf of certain capitalists. According to the main outlines of this plan, a Company was to be formed in England to construct between four and five hundred miles of railway, in several lines leading from Durban inland. The government was to grant a subsidy of £40,000 a year for twenty years, dating from the completion of the lines, and proportionally as different sections were opened to traffic, to endow the Company very richly with waste lands, and to confer a monopoly of

R

certain mining privileges. But the Secretary of State refused to sanction the contract, as in his opinion the colony could not afford to part with its waste lands in this manner, even though the Company should be bound to introduce a few thousand European immigrants. He preferred to see the government constructing some of the most important lines with capital borrowed in England, which there would be no difficulty in raising, as the credit of Natal stood high. The government then undertook to lay down three lines, one from Durban to Maritzburg and the others along the coast, for which a contract was entered into with an English firm. The work was commenced early in 1876. It is tolerably certain that the upland line will be extended at an early date so as to open up the coalfields of Newcastle and to tap the trade of the Transvaal Republic.

Natal has attracted the attention of the outside world more perhaps by ecclesiastical than by commercial transactions. In this little colony and among these nineteen thousand Europeans, a case arose on the issue of which depended the future relationship between the Crown, the Church of England, and the episcopal churches in all the British possessions abroad. In 1853 the episcopal see of Cape Town, which had hitherto included the whole of South Africa, was divided into two portions, and Dr. J. W. COLENSO, an eminent mathematician, was appointed by Her Majesty's Letters Patent Bishop of Natal. There were not many white people in the colony among whom churches could be planted, for the majority of the few European . residents were presbyterians of one denomination or other; but the mission field was wide and only partly occupied, though the American Independents, the Wesleyans, and several other Societies, were fast extending their labours in it. It was therefore principally as a missionary bishop that Dr. COLENSO went to Natal, and he has been distinguished ever since his arrival by a very warm attachment to the natives, combined with an untiring zeal for their improvement. What LAS CASAS was in the Spanish Indies, Dr. COLENSO would have been in Natal, if there had been the same or similar grievances to redress. This implies a strong partizanship, and, whenever it has been possible, the Bishop has assumed the position of Champion of the Natives. Thus, as a colonial bishop, an author of numerous books in different branches of mathematics, and a representative of the natives of South-Eastern Africa, Dr. COLENSO was known throughout the Englishspeaking world.

He was to be yet more widely known by the publication of a work of biblical criticism, which he found time to write amidst such varied occupations as few men are capable of undertaking. The book was at once condemned as heretical by the great majority of Christians everywhere. The author was called upon to retract the opinions he had expressed, and, upon his declining to do so, he was cited by the Metropolitan Bishop of Cape Town to appear before a court composed of all the South African bishops, to be tried on the charge of heresy. Dr. COLENSO then showed that a knowledge of law must be classed with his other attainments. Taking his stand

upon the Letters Patent of the Queen, he ignored the authority of the court of bishops, and when he was pronounced guilty of heresy and sentenced to be deposed, he declined to abide by the judgment. The highest tribunal in England, to which an appeal was made, maintained him in his position. The colonial churches were declared to be nothing more than voluntary associations, bound by no law to the established church of England, and in them no person can be compelled to yield obedience to another, unless a formal agreement to that effect has been made. The Bishop of Natal was therefore not subject to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of any man or body of men, and as long as his partizans chose to recognize him he could not be deprived of his office.

In Natal itself a party seceded from Dr. COLENSO, and elected as their bishop Dr. W. K. MACRORIE, who was consecrated on the 25th of January, 1869, in the cathedral church of Cape Town, by the bishops of Cape Town, Grahamstown, St. Helena, and the Orange Free State, and took the title of Bishop of Maritzburg. His adherents style themselves members of the Church of the Province of South Africa, in contradistinction to the adherents of the Bishop of Natal, who term themselves members of the Church of England. The property acquired before the disruption remains in the hands of Bishop COLENSO, by decision of the civil courts, while Bishop MACRORIE is mainly supported by English Societies and foreign sympathizers.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE NATIVES IN THE COLONY OF NATAL.

WHEN the English took possession of Natal, there were about one hundred thousand natives within its borders. They did not form a compact tribe, but were broken up into little clans, mostly under chiefs of recent elevation. There was no bond of cohesion among them, and all looked up to the European for protection and willingly submitted to his government. The number was constantly being increased by refugees from the surrounding tribes and by fugitives returning to their former home.

In 1846 tracts of land amounting in all to about two millions of acres were set apart for their use. There they were allowed to live under the immediate government of their chiefs, and to preserve their own laws and customs. A few magistrates were scattered about the country, who exercised jurisdiction over them generally, and kept watch over their proceedings, but did not interfere with the control of the chiefs over their