The first, and most formidable, danger is that arising from the existence in all the Colonies of South Africa of a Separatist party among the Boer section of the population, usually described as the Young Afrikander party. Its origin is due to many historic causes; among which not the least has been the unwise and vacillating policy of the Imperial Government. That party is by no means extinct as a result of the late war. No matter what professions are made in the Land of Diplomatists, it has to be reckoned with for our time and generation. It relies for the ultimate success of its policy of substituting a Boer-ruled independent State for British citizenship of the Empire on many causes. In the first place, the stubborn tenacity of the Boer people, and their slowness to abandon any long-held purpose. Again, on their military skill, their religious fanaticism, their conviction that they are the Lord's elect, and that His sword will smite not in vain. Yet again, and most of all, on the enormous birth-rate among the Boers--families of twelve sons being not uncommon. Boer ignorance of the power and purpose of the Empire--of the real character of that federation of freemen--figures also in their calculations; and as well the barrier against fusion of the European strains kept up by the use of that _patois_ of the Hollander tongue, the South African _Taal_. Lastly, their main reliance is on future inefficiency of the Imperial administration--marred by negrophilist British missionaries and English society nepotism and favouritism--on the see-saw of British party politics, and on the prospects of the Empire becoming involved in war with some great European Power.