and his, the old chief being ultimately given to understand that he and his people and country were to be taken over, as Mr. Southey said, with the knowledge and consent of the high commissioner. This was another of the promises made only to be broken; and to prove beyond question that all the troubles predicted have come about, it is only necessary to allude to recent historical events culminating in Sir Charles Warren’s expedition to Bechuanaland. Mr. Southey had from the time of his taking office persistently requested the high commissioner to get the land question settled, and had sent warning after warning that delay in giving out the titles was fraught with the greatest possible danger. But the high commissioner was in the hands of the secretary of the colonies in the first place, and in the second his excellency had not mastered the situation. Then those who fomented discontent and disturbance had circulated, among other infamous slanders, that the lieutenant governor and the secretary to government were men bent on land-jobbing in their own interest and in the interest of their friends and political adherents. In the session of 1875 the high commissioner, despite his previously issued reassuring proclamation to the effect that no private rights should be disturbed, sent up a land ordinance drafted in Capetown, and requested the lieutenant governor to introduce it to the legislative council and get it passed into law. This the lieutenant governor respectfully but firmly refused to do. By the draft ordinance a land court was to be created, and a judge appointed to decide upon the claims of every one, no matter whether his claims were disputed or not. Even Waterboer himself, from whom the government had derived all their territorial rights, was to be forced into court and pay the expenses himself, to prove that his private properties, farms, etc., belonged to him. The judge was, moreover, to have power to reduce the size of farms, and in no case to permit one to be given out of more than 6,000 acres in extent. The lieutenant governor held that by allowing this ordinance to pass into the statute book the government would be abrogating its especial function, which was to protect those who could produce unimpeachable titles, whether obtained by grant, purchase or other legitimate means. The cost of going to law to obtain them they, he said, ought not to be compelled to incur. The law courts ought not, he maintained, to be called upon to deal with any land claims excepting such as were in dispute. The executive government could deal with the undisputed claims, exchange British for existing titles, etc., thus saving expenditure and delay, while the high court was quite sufficient to deal with disputed claims.