There can hardly be a doubt that Kimberley and the diamond fields have been of great service to the black men who obtain work. No doubt they are thieves,--as regards the diamonds,--but their thievery will gradually be got under by the usual processes. To argue against providing work for a Kafir because a Kafir may steal is the same as to say that housemaids should not be taught to write lest they should learn to forge. That argument has been used, but does not now require refutation. And there can be as little doubt that the finding of diamonds has in a commercial point of view been the salvation of South Africa. The Orange Free State, of which “The Fields” at first formed a part, and which is closely adjacent to them, has been so strengthened by the trade thus created as to be now capable of a successful and permanent existence,--a condition of things which I think no observer of South African affairs would have considered to be possible had not Kimberley with its eighteen thousand much-consuming mouths been established on its border. As regards the Cape Colony generally, if quite the same thing need not be said, it must be acknowledged that its present comparative success is due almost entirely to the diamonds,--or rather to the commercial prosperity caused by the consumption in which diamond finders and their satellites have been enabled to indulge. The Custom duties of the Cape Colony in 1869, before the diamond industry existed, were less than £300,000.[10] In 1875 that sum had been very much more than doubled. And it must be remembered that this rapid increase did not come from any great increase of numbers. The diamond-digging brought in a few white men no doubt, but only a few in comparison with the increase in revenue. There are but 8,000 Europeans in the diamond fields altogether. Had they all been new comers this would have been no great increase to a population which now exceeds 700,000 persons. The sudden influx of national wealth has come from the capability for consumption created by the new industry. White men looking for diamonds can drink champagne. Black men looking for diamonds can buy clothes and guns and food. It is not the wealth found which directly enriches the nation, but the trade created by the finding. It was the same with the gold in Australia. Of the national benefit arising from the diamonds there can be no doubt. Whether they have been equally beneficial to those who have searched for them and found them may be a matter of question.