THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, APRIL 29.

Grey River Argus, Volume LVII, Issue 10520, 29 April 1901, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. MONDAY, APRIL 29.

As there can no longer remain a doubt as to the issue of tfie still distressful war in South Africa, people are beginning to speculate as to what wiil take ».lace next. First of all the Boers must be at least sufficiently quieted. The bitter leasons of a hard experience that they have had forced upon their somewhat dull understanding will not have been wasted. All races of mon must at last recognise the force of stern, incontrovertible facts. All races of men have had to bend before all-compelling influence. Even the Chinaman, who has existed in a st.ite of intellectual atrophy foe ages — he was oivilized when the western nations were barbarians — is realising the force of circumstances and giving indications that he is desirous of becoming affiliated to his first ooußin of tbe Land of the Chrysantemum. We do not despair of the Boer. He comes of a grand race, and the South African portion has merely happened to be side-tracked in a wilderness, and to some extent their surroundings have decivilised them. But that is a very small matter in the course of the world's affairs. In ten years' time the Boers won't know themselves. South Africa is destined to be one of the ! great countries of the world ; it will I surely become a third great sphere in the Empire comparable with the Canadian Dominion and the Commonwealth of Australia. The country possesses all the elements of wealth and other things conducive to human happiness. It is not surprising that many of "our boys" who have gone there sigh for the equable climate and pleasant joys of life in New Zea'and ; but that is nothing— very many who are there will have acquired an interest in their surrounding?, and are not likely t ) see New Zealand again ; and they who remain in South Africa will draw others in sympathy with them from this colony, and from Canada »nd Australia likewise. Ihe war is slowly 6zzling out. But the Boer, with all his desperate doggedness, is doomed, An unknown poet of South Africa sang in lines of remarkable merit, about the dying Boer said, "The great worlddoes not want us, and we must go; for I hear the Rooi Baatje singing on the road." The fucure of South Africa suggested itself to us on reading the offer of the South Africa Company to give 100,000 acres of land co Australian farmers in Rhodesia on the sole condition of spending 1.100,000 on improvements within ten years. This will advantage Rhodesia and every Australian who accepts the offer, for the whole of Rhodesia is a "sweeet veldt" country, as the Boers well know, for thousands of them have settled there and kept out of the war by thei." countrymen and relatives.

But this is only a detail. A short while ago Mr Chamberlain said that one hundred thousand immigrants would arrive in South Africa twelve months after hostilities were closed and that there would be a corresponding number of women. This announcement was made at the annual meeting ofthe United British Women's Emigration Association, held at the Imperial Institute. "When the Secretary of State for the Colonies declares himself in so unmistakable a manner it implies that Government contemplate an assisted emigration scheme of some magnitude. He spoke in a very serious mood and impressed upon his hearers that the Government felt very strongly that the emigration of British people to South Africa was going to exercise a commanding influence on the fortunes of that country in the immediate future. He said, "We shall be sending there some of the best and most energetic of our population — by tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands." The phrase is comprehensive and contains a world of meaning. It in.plies that besides the establishment of a defence force; numbers will be sent who will aid in developing the mineral, pastoral and agricultural resources of the country ; all sorts of industries will spring up m | accordance with the necessities and re- ! sources of the country ; the Boers will no longer be able to resist the new influences and conditions of life; they will gradually learn to leave their old slothful andsemi-bar baric independence behind them as the ophidians exuviate their past year'a coating ; they will learn to work and live a cleanly, and industrious and wholesome life. The British will gradually and soon far outnumber the Boers ; only the English language will be spoken, and the identity of the Boers as a nation, or even as a community, will disappear and be lost for evermore. Only a few days ago the discovery of rich reefs in the Murchison ranges of North Transvaal was announced. Should that prove to be anything like tbe Rand or Westralia, no Government emigration scheme wi I be required to send thousands there with a a prompitude and sustained energy that could not be equalled by any Government scheme. No force of modem days for reclaiming a wilderness or sending a country ahead can compare with the rush to new diggings, the so-called "accursed thirst for g:>ld," but which draws in its wake all the advantages of the highest civilisation. The digger will yet do for South Africa what he has done for California, Australia and the sub-arctic regions of Klondyke | and Siberia.