THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1896.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10021, 7 January 1896, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1896.

The serious complications that have arisen out of the raid in Transvaal will probably lead to a reconsideration of the system of exploiting new possessions through the way of chartered companies. It is far from being the first time on which mischief has arisen from entrusting a State's duties and responsibilities to private commercial enterprise, and if the latest escapade does not lead to the withdrawal of the British South Africa Company, it ought at least to be suggestive of more severe limitations on the powers with which suchjbodies are entrusted. That as in the case of the East India Company the limits of the empire may bo expanded in this way is undoubted. But the conditions of modern times, and the manner in which the spheres of influence of the Great Powers impinge on one another in foreign parts, impose the necessity of more careful looking after the operations of these semi-State corporations, if the nat is are to be spared from becoming ioibroilecl with one another. Going no further away than our own colony, we know the evil that arose from the transactions of a State chartered company with the aboriginal owners of territory, and we may trace to this, directly or indirectly, the native troubles with which this country was so long tormented. Our New Zealand transactions, however, were but a trivial thing by the side of the colossal interests entrusted to these great African companies, one of which, through the intemperate ambition of its omcer, has now the attention of the whole world directed towards it. The area committed to the administration of the South Africa Chartered Company exceeds in extent the whole of the territory of France, Germany, Austria, and Italy, and this not in barren and profitless desert, but in lauds generally as fertile, as rich in resources, and capable of sustaining probably as dense populations. Another of these chartered companies, the Royal Niger Company, on the west coast of Central Africa, exercises quasiimperial rights over .areas as targe as those of several European States, making treaties with many hundreds of native tribes and princes, and levying war on its neighbours when occasion calls with all the independence of a sovereign state. The Imperial British East Africa Company rules over territory four or five times the extent of the British Islands themselves, containing many millions of people, some of them of the most warlike dispositions, and as in the case of the other chartered companies, the boundaries are co-terminous with those of the spheres of several of the Great Powers of Europe. That such a situation should not lead sooner or later to complications, is not in the nature of things, and the excitement that has arisen over this roncontre in South Africa, is but an illustration of the slumbering volcanoes on which the Empire must be resting, so long as this particular way of extending British influence and power is continued. The British South Africa Company is a purely commercial enterprise, the primary interest of which is to make as much money as it can for its shareholders, yet on its prudent behaviour are dependent, as we have seen,- the issues of peace and war to the whole Empire. Chartered six years ago, its earliest operation was to occupy Mashonaland, which through the kindly favour and forbearance of Lobengula, King of the Matabeles, was effected in a manner so peaceful and so satisfactory as to elicit peans of praise and self-gratulations on the wonderful capacity of the race for peaceful extension. But a little time required to exhibit its capacity in another direction, and the conquest of Matabeleland, and the death of its fugitive King, were the simple sequence of its necessities. The organiser of all this was dubbed the Napoleon of South Africa, and the persistent determination to expropriate the tribal occupants of the territory under his semi-regal sway has been lauded as strength of character redounding to the glory of the race. It is difficult with our present information to surmise what practical object could have been in contemplation in this attempt. on the independent State of Transvaal; but we have no difficulty in concluding that the spirit that prompted it was born of the predatory principle that had been fostered by that combination of military strength and commercial greed that constitutes the basis of this particular method of extending the limits of empire. To suppose that the raid was a sudden impulse in the mind of the unfortunate leader, who is now in gaol in Johannesberg, would be to belie the symmetry of the plan of South African enterprise. Probably it was understood that matters Had been so matured for revolution in Johannesberg that it required but the appearance of a leader who was invested with the prestige of previous success, and that the whole, body : of Uitlanders would fall into line behind the lieutenant of . the ; South African Napoleon. '.Visions, perhaps of even 1 more independent sway than that

hitherto enjoyed as a mere representative of a Chartered Company, floated in the air, blended with visionsof the boundless wealth of golden mountains to be administered, while the plaudits that had been won from the world and reechoed by Imperial authority for former acts of aggression seemed a guarantee that success would sanctify the violence of the means employed, and gild again the glory of the Napoleon of South Africa,

This aggression, wanton and unjustifiable as it is, seems but the natural outcome of the indulgence given to tli9 semi-filibustering advances already made by the representatives of the company into Zambesia; and though we canuob but sincerely regret that the English Government has been com* promised by this reckless and desperate proceeding, it is difficult to say that it is not to some extent a punishment for having committed State powers to bo exeroised wantonly for private commercial gain. We have been taken by. surprise at the burst of sympathy that lias been evoked among the nations for the President of the South African Republic, and the message of the German Emperor is as ungenerous as it was unexpected. But perhaps all this feeling is not to be credited to more international jealousy, but may have been slowly gathering from observing thebraggadocioofthemanwhowhileprojecting the carrying of British influence from the Cape to Cairo, was applauded while trampling underfoot tribal and all other rights in his way, and in being so applauded was accepted as the embodiment of the spirit of British policy. If Eugland is 'to stand right in the eyes of the nations she must act righteously, and this will hardly be achieved so long as she allows her prestige and the moral power of her great strength to be used by commercial enterprise for its own aggrandisement with but little, if any, regard for the honour of the empire. This mad attack on a friendly State by a commissioned British officer in command of organised British troops was of course made without the cognisance of the British Government. But after the confidence that has been reposed in Mr. Cecil Rhodes, and the honours that have been paid to him, it must be difficult for foreigners not to think that the trusted and petted representative of British progress was, through his trusty lieutenant, interpreting the policy of "perfidious Albion" in a sudden and planned attack for the purpose of annexing a friendly State,