I think I am justified in saying that the idea among those who are now managing the Colony is to induce the Government at home to guarantee a loan,--which means that the Transvaal should be enabled to borrow on the best security that the world has yet produced, that namely of the British nation. And perhaps there is something to warrant this expectation on their part. The annexation, distasteful as the idea is at home of a measure so high-handed and so apparently unwarrantable, has been well received. It has been approved by our Secretary of State, who is himself approved of in what he has caused to be done by Parliament and the nation. The Secretary of State must feel a tenderness for the Transvaal, as we all do for any belonging of our own which has turned out better than we expected. The annexation has turned out so well that they who are now concerned with its affairs seem to expect that the British Government and the British Parliament will assent to the giving of such security. It may be that they are right. Writing when and where I am now I have no means of knowing how far the need for such a loan and the undoubted utility of such a railway may induce those who have the power in their hands to depart from what I believe to be now the established usage of the mother country in regard to its Colonies,--viz., that of sanctioning loans only when they can be floated on the security of the Colony itself. If I may venture to express an opinion on the subject, I think that that usage should be followed in this case. No doubt the making of the railway would be postponed in this way,--or rather would be accelerated if the British name and British credit were to be pawned for Transvaal purpose; but I doubt the justice of risking British money in such a cause. The Transvaal colonist in making such an application would in fact be asking for the use of capital at British rates of interest with the object of making colonial profits. The risk would attach wholly to the mother country. The profits, if profits should come, would belong wholly to the Colony. Money, too, with nations and with colonies is valued and used on the same principles as with individuals. When it has been easily got, without personal labour, proffered lightly without requirement of responsibility or demand for security, it is spent as easily and too often is used foolishly. Lend a man money on security and he will know that every shilling that he spends must come at last out of his own pocket. If money for the purpose required were at once thrown into the Transvaal,--as might be the case to-morrow if the British Government were to secure the loan,--there would immediately arise a feeling that wealth was being scattered about broadcast, and that a halcyon time had come in which parsimony and prudence were no longer needed. The thing would have been too easy,--and easy things are seldom useful and are never valued.