Cape Wants are neither peculiar nor numerous. Captain Smoke, in Jerrold’s comedy of “Bubbles of the Day,” confides to his friend, Lord Skindeep, that he is “terribly in want of a thousand pounds.” The reply is “You may take it as a general rule, Captain Smoke, that _every man_ wants a thousand pounds.” As with men so with Colonies. The sun never sets upon one of the dependencies of Great Britain, young or old, which would not be the better for a thousand pounds. Our Colonies feel, however, another want;--it is for something to which the Smokes of the old country show a very marked aversion; and that is labour. “Capital and labour!” is a cry which reaches us from every quarter of the earth. The demand does not resound so loudly perhaps from the Cape as from other and newer Colonies; but the want of the first necessities of enterprise, civilisation, and progress is not the less felt. Any sort of European labour (except convict labour), any kind of capital, is welcome in our South African dependencies; and in the long run “pays.” As to Capital; men with from two thousand pounds to ten thousand pounds will find plenty of most profitable employment for their money. The Colony has innumerable resources--amongst them I may mention her fisheries and her mineral treasures. The former produce a large revenue even now, though carried on, from want of enterprise and capital, in the most unsystematic and slovenly manner. Of minerals there is abundance; ore in many places actually lying on the surface. The assegais (or spears) of the Kafirs are all made of iron, smelted and welded by themselves; while recent travellers from the northernmost extremity of the Colony bring accounts of innumerable implements in use among the savage tribes there, formed of iron of their own manufacture. Copper and lead have been discovered within fifteen miles of Algoa Bay. But such riches remain utterly unproductive without facile means of transport, and a great want in the Colony is good roads. Of course, want of labour is the cause of this deficiency, which is, however, being slowly remedied by the local government. Whether the Cape Colonists were wise in rejecting the convicts, so kindly proffered to them by Lord Grey, I shall not presume to opine, because I have a notion that everybody knows their own business best; but we must not forget that New South Wales owes the blessing of her good roads to what was, it must be admitted, in other respects, a great curse to her--the bands of convicts the Colonial Office were so obliging as to send her.