But then neither have Englishmen flocked to India, which of all our possessions is the most important,--or to Ceylon, which as being called a Colony and governed from the Colonial Office at home may afford us the nearest parallel we can find to South Africa. No doubt they are in many things unlike. No English workman takes his family to Ceylon because the tropical sun is too hot for a European to work beneath it. South Africa is often hot, but it is not tropical, and an Englishman can work there. And again in Ceylon the coloured population have from the first British occupation of the island been recognised as “the people,”--an interesting and submissive but still foreign and coloured people, whom she should not dream of inviting to govern themselves. It is a matter of course that Ceylon should be governed as a Crown Colony,--with edicts and laws from Downing Street, administered by the hand of a Governor. A Cingalee Parliament would be an absurdity in our eyes. But in the Cape Colony we have, as I shall explain in another chapter, all the circumstances of parliamentary government. The real Governor is the Colonial Prime Minister for the time, with just such restraints as control our Prime Minister at home. Therefore Ceylon and the Cape Colony are very unlike in their circumstances. But the likeness is much more potential than the unlikeness. In each country there is a vast coloured population subject to British rule,--and a population which is menaced by no danger of coming extermination. It must always be remembered that the Kafirs are not as the Maoris. They are increasing now more quickly than ever because, under our rule, they do not kill each other off in tribal wars. No doubt the white men are increasing too,--but very slowly; so that it is impossible not to accept the fact a few white men have to rule a great number of coloured men, and that that proportion must remain.