It was stated in the House of Commons, in the debate on the South African Permissive Bill in the summer of 1877, that Natal contained a population of 17,000 white and 280,000 Natives. I am assured that the former number is somewhat understated, and I have spoken therefore of 20,000 white people. The Natives are certainly much more numerous than was supposed. I have taken them as 320,000; but judging from the hut tax I think they must be at least 10,000 more. Many probably evade the hut tax and some live without huts. Let us take the numbers as 20,000 and 320,000. With such a population can it be well to draw even near to a system of government by parliamentary majorities? We cannot exclude the black voter by his colour. To do so would be to institute a class legislation which would be opposed to all our feelings. Nor can any one say who is black or who white. But we all know how impossible it is that any number of whites, however small, should be ruled by any number of blacks, however great. In dealing with such a population we are bound to think of Ceylon or British Guiana, or of India,--and not of Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. At present the franchise in Natal is only given to such Natives as have lived for seven years in conformity with European laws and customs,--having exempted themselves in that time from native law,--and who shall have obtained from the Governor of the Colony permission to vote on these grounds. At present the Native is in this way altogether excluded. But the embargo is of its nature too arbitrary;--and, nevertheless, would not be strong enough for safety were there adventurous white politicians in the Colony striving to acquire a parliamentary majority and parliamentary power by bringing the Zulus to the poll. I think that the nature of the population of South Africa, and the difficulties which must in coming years arise from that population, were hardly sufficiently considered when government by parliamentary majorities was forced upon the Cape Colony and carried through its Legislative Houses by narrow majorities. That action has, I fear, rendered the Cape unfit to confederate with the other Provinces; and especially unfit to confederate with Natal, where the circumstances of the population demand direct government from the Crown. I trust that the experiment of parliamentary government may not be tried in Natal, where the circumstances of the population are very much more against it than they were in the Cape Colony. CHAPTER XV. CONDITION OF THE COLONY.--NO. 1.