In spite of all these difficulties,--and they are very great,--the stranger cannot pass through the sugar districts of Natal without becoming conscious of Colonial success. I have heard it argued that sugar was doing no good to Natal because the profits reached England in the shape of dividends on bank shares which were owned and spent in the mother country. I can never admit the correctness of this argument, for it is based on the assumption that in large commercial enterprises the gain, or loss, realized by the capitalist is the one chief point of interest;--that if he makes money all is well, and that if he loses it all is ill. It may be so to him. But the real effect of his operations is to be found in the wages and salaries he pays and the amount of expenditure which his works occasion. I have heard of a firm which carried on a large business without any thought of profit, merely for political purposes. The motive I think was bad;--but not the less beneficial to the population was the money spent in wages. Even though all the profits from sugar grown in Natal were spent in England,--which is by no means the case,--the English shareholders cannot get at their dividends without paying workmen of all classes to earn them,--from the black man who hoes the canes up to the Superintendent who rides about on his horse and acts the part of master. There is a side to the sugar question in Natal which to me is less satisfactory than the arrangements made in regard to Capital. As I have repeated, and I fear shall repeat too often,--there are 320,000 Natives in Natal; Kafirs and Zulus, strong men as one would wish to see; and yet the work of the estates is done by Coolies from India. I ought not to have been astonished by this for I had known twenty years ago that sugar was grown or at any rate manufactured by Coolie labour in Demerara and Trinidad, and had then been surprised at the apathy of the people of Jamaica in that they had not introduced Coolies into that island. There were stalwart negroes without stint in these sugar colonies,--who had been themselves slaves, or were the children of slaves; but these negroes would only work so fitfully that the planters had been forced to introduce regular labour from a distance. The same thing, and nothing more, had taken place in Natal. But yet I was astonished. It seemed to be so sad that with all their idle strength standing close by, requiring labour for its own salvation,--with so large a population which labour only can civilize, we who have taken upon ourselves to be their masters should send all the way to India for men to do that which it ought to be their privilege to perform. But so it is. There are now over 10,000 Coolies domiciled in Natal, all of whom have been brought there with the primary object of making sugar.