In the Transvaal, and indeed in South Africa generally, it behoves us to welcome all comers from Europe and America, not being adventurers or wastrels--all and sundry who can contribute to the good of the country and who are willing to become loyal citizens. It will be madness to attempt to build up a South African nation from these islands alone. England is a small country and the English are gradually ceasing--and this tendency is certain to increase--to rear large families. In the past, in our own land as well as in our realms beyond the seas, our chief glory has been in our genius in amalgamating different strains, bringing them all into the fold as patriotic Britons. The British Empire is now more than ever a crucible wherein metals, precious and base, may be wrought into a fine amalgam. Whether as a limb of a great and regenerated British Empire, and therein my individual hopes lie, or as a powerful republic on the pattern of the United States, there ought to be no question as to the future of South Africa. Mr. Chamberlain said again only the other day that the prosperity of South Africa in the not far distant future would doubtless exceed the dreams of the most sanguine visionary. So let it be. Many shrewd Americans are of the same mind. No doubt the immediate expansion in South Africa's import trade is due to military requirements, while the shrinkage of its export trade may be attributed mainly to the war having put a stop to the recovery and exportation of gold. The cost of living throughout South Africa, at present extraordinarily high, is certain to be reduced to more reasonable limits when the railways are permanently relieved from the control of the military. It must be remembered, too, that while a fair proportion of favoured individuals among the colonists have reaped huge harvests by the war, a far greater number have been crippled and ruined outright by it. It is not for me to deal with the problems of trade; but I may say that even should some scheme of the favoured-nation kind be extended to British imports by the South African Realm to be, that in itself would not serve, nor will the spirit of patriotic preference for British goods suffice to preserve the trade of South Africa for this country. The matter rests with our manufacturers, exporters, and their agents; and no one, not being a self-deceived egoist, can pretend that the more alert, adaptive, and modern methods of American and German houses are not certain, unless our countrymen turn over a new leaf, to prove too much for our LAISSEZ-FAIRE, self-sufficiency, and careless indifference.