Australian commerce upon such neutral rights as could be granted by an independent South Africa, or if they left the Cape in such a position that it could be seized by a hostile power. We have an interesting historical illustration of what security on this great trade route means in the fact, stated on apparently reliable authority, that between the years 1793 and 1797, when the French held the Isle of France and Bourbon, no less than 2266 British merchantmen were seized by French ships or expeditions sallying out from those stations. So intolerable did the situation become for British commerce that the conquest of the French stations became an absolute necessity, and this was effected in 1810 when a new outbreak of war had made like disaster imminent. Yet this was before the vast trade of Australasia had come into existence, and when our trade with the East was but a trifle compared with its present great proportions. {240} In the case of South Africa, however, the argument for national unity is so strong that few undertake to question it. Not long since, in the Manchester Reform Club, I met a sincere disciple of the old school of thinkers on colonial policy. He had studied the question under Mr. Goldwin Smith, at Toronto, and was at first concisely and comprehensively dogmatic in his assertion that the only plan for England was not only to permit, but to encourage, each of the great colonies to become independent as soon as possible. He was an honest thinker, and one could with him afford to stake the argument on a candid answer to a single question. 'Could Great Britain, with any regard to the safety of her national position, afford to give up South Africa'? The emphatic negative which, after a moment's thought, he gave, was the only reply possible for one who acknowledged the force of facts when presented to his mind. THE WEST INDIES.