III

What of the personal side of Smuts? While he is intensely human it is difficult to connect anecdote with him. I heard one at Capetown, however, that I do not think has seen the light of print. It reveals his methods, too.

When the Germans ran amuck in 1914 Smuts was Minister of Defense of the Union of South Africa. The Nationalists immediately began to make life uncomfortable for him. Balked in their attempt to keep the Union out of the struggle they took another tack. After the Botha campaign in German South-West Africa was well under way, a member of the Opposition asked the Minister of Defense the following question in Parliament: "How much has South Africa paid for horses in the field and the Nationalists sought to make some political capital out of an expenditure that they remounts?" The Union forces employed thousands of called "waste."

Smuts sent over to Army Headquarters to get the figures. He was told that it would take twenty clerks at least four weeks to compile the data.

"Never mind," was his laconic comment. The next day happened to be Question Day in the House. As soon as the query about the remount charge came up Smuts calmly rose in his seat and replied:

"It was exactly eight million one hundred and sixty-nine thousand pounds, ten shillings and sixpence." He then sat down without any further remark.

When one of his colleagues asked him where he got this information he said:

"I dug it out of my own mind. It will take the Nationalists a month to figure it out and by that time they will have forgotten all about it." And it was forgotten.

Smuts not only has a keen sense of humor but is swift on the retort. While speaking at a party rally in his district not many years after the Boer War he was continually interrupted by an ex-soldier. He stopped his speech and asked the man to state his grievance. The heckler said:

"General de la Rey guaranteed the men fighting under him a living."

Quick as a flash Smuts replied:

"Nonsense. What he guaranteed you was certain death."

Like many men conspicuous in public life Smuts gets up early and has polished off a good day's work before the average business man has settled down to his job. There is a big difference between his methods of work and those of Lloyd George. The British Prime Minister only goes to the House of Commons when he has to make a speech or when some important question is up for discussion. Smuts attends practically every session of Parliament, at least he did while I was in Capetown.

One reason was that on account of the extraordinary position in which he found himself, any moment might have produced a division carrying with it disastrous results for the Government. The crisis demanded that he remain literally on the job all the time. He left little to his lieutenants. Confident of his ability in debate he was always willing to risk a showdown but he had to be there when it came.

I watched him as he sat in the House. He occupied a front bench directly opposite Hertzog and where he could look his arch enemy squarely in the eyes all the time. I have seen him sit like a Sphinx for an hour without apparently moving a muscle. He has cultivated that rarest of arts which is to be a good listener. He is one of the great concentrators. In this genius, for it is little less, lies one of the secrets of his success. During a lull in legislative proceedings he has a habit of taking a solitary walk out in the lobby. More than once I saw him pacing up and down, always with an ear cocked toward the Assembly Room so he could hear what was going on and rush to the rescue if necessary.

In the afternoon he would sometimes go into the members' smoking room and drink a cup of coffee, the popular drink in South Africa. In the old Boer household the coffee pot is constantly boiling. With a cup of coffee and a piece of "biltong" inside him a Boer could fight or trek all day. Coffee bears the same relation to the South African that tea does to the Englishman, save that it is consumed in much larger quantities. I might add that Smuts neither drinks liquor of any kind nor smokes, and he eats sparingly. He admits that his one dissipation is farming.

This comes naturally because he was born fifty years ago on a farm in what is known as the Western Province in the Karoo country. He did his share of the chores about the place until it was time for him to go to school. His father and his grandfather were farmers. Inbred in him, as in most Boers, is an ardent love of country life and especially an affection for the mountains. On more than one occasion he has climbed to the top of Table Mountain, which is no inconsiderable feat.

There are two ways of appraising Smuts. One is to see him in action as I did at Capetown, while Parliament was in session. The other is to get him with the background of his farm at Irene, a little way station about ten miles from Pretoria. Here, in a rambling one-story house surrounded by orchards, pastures, and gardens, he lives the simple life. In the western part of the Transvaal he owns a real farm. He showed his shrewdness in the acquisition of this property because he bought it at a time when the region was dubbed a "desert." Now it is a garden spot.

Irene has various distinct advantages. For one thing it is his permanent home. Groote Schuur is the property of the Government and he owes his tenancy of it entirely to the fortunes of politics. At Irene is planted his hearthstone and around it is mobilized his considerable family. There are six little Smutses. Smuts married the sweetheart of his youth who is a rarely congenial helpmate. It was once said of her that she "went about the house with a baby under one arm and a Greek dictionary under the other."

Most people do not realize that the Union of South Africa has two capitals. Capetown with the House of Parliament is the center of legislation, while Pretoria, the ancient Kruger stronghold, with its magnificent new Union buildings atop a commanding eminence, is the fountain-head of administration. With Irene only ten miles away it is easy for Smuts to live with his family after the adjournment of Parliament, and go in to his office at Pretoria every day.

I have already given you a hint of the Smuts personal appearance. Let us now take a good look at him. His forehead is lofty, his nose arched, his mouth large. You know that his blonde beard veils a strong jaw. The eyes are reminiscent of those marvelous orbs of Marshal Foch only they are blue, haunting and at times inexorable. Yet they can light up with humor and glow with friendliness.

Smuts is essentially an out-of-doors person and his body is wiry and rangy. He has the stride of a man seasoned to the long march and who is equally at home in the saddle. He speaks with vigour and at times not without emotion. The Boer is not a particularly demonstrative person and Smuts has some of the racial reserve. His personality betokens potential strength,—a suggestion of the unplumbed reserve that keeps people guessing. This applies to his mental as well as his physical capacity. Frankly cordial, he resents familiarity. You would never think of slapping him on the shoulder and saying, "Hello, Jan." More than one blithe and buoyant person has been frozen into respectful silence in such a foolhardy undertaking.

His middle name is Christian and it does not belie a strong phase of his character. Without carrying his religious convictions on his coat-sleeve, he has nevertheless a fine spiritual strain in his make-up. He is an all-round dependable person, with an adaptability to environment that is little short of amazing.

IV

Now let us turn to another and less conspicuous South African whose point of view, imperial, personal and patriotic, is the exact opposite of that of Smuts. Throughout this chapter has run the strain of Hertzog, first the Boer General fighting gallantly in the field with Smuts as youthful comrade; then the member of the Botha Cabinet; later the bitter insurgent, and now the implacable foe of the order that he helped to establish. What manner of man is he and what has he to say?

I talked to him one afternoon when he left the floor leadership to his chief lieutenant, a son of the late President Steyn of the Orange Free State. Like his father, who called himself "President" to the end of his life although his little republic had slipped away from him, he has never really yielded to English rule.

We adjourned to the smoking room where we had the inevitable cup of South African coffee. I was prepared to find a fanatic and fire-eater. Instead I faced a thin, undersized man who looked anything but a general and statesman. Put him against the background of a small New England town and you would take him for an American country lawyer. He resembles the student more than the soldier and, like many Boers, speaks English with a British accent. Nor is he without force. No man can play the rôle that he has played in South Africa those past twenty-five years without having substance in him.

When I asked him to state his case he said:

"The republican idea is as old as South Africa. There was a republic before the British arrived. The idea came from the American Revolution and the inspiration was Washington. The Great Trek of 1836 was a protest very much like the one we are making today.

"President Wilson articulated the Boer feeling with his gospel of self-determination. He also voiced the aspirations of Ireland, India and Egypt. It is a great world idea—a deep moral conviction of mankind, this right of the individual state, as of the individual for freedom.

"Never again will Transvaal and Orange Free State history be repeated. No matter how a nation covets another—and I refer to British covetousness,—if the nation coveted is able to govern itself it cannot and must not be assimilated. It is one result of the Great War."

"What is the Nationalist ideal?" I asked.

"It is the right to self-rule," replied Hertzog. "But there must be no conflict if it can be avoided. It must prevail by reason and education. At the present time I admit that the majority of South Africans do not want republicanism. The Nationalist mission today is to keep the torch lighted."

"How does this idea fit into the spirit of the League of Nations?" I queried.

"It fits in perfectly," was the response. "We Nationalists favor the League as outlined by Wilson. But I fear that it will develop into a capitalistic, imperialistic empire dominating the world instead of a league of nations."

I asked Hertzog how he reconciled acquiescence to Union to the present Nationalist revolt. The answer was:

"The Nationalists supported the Government because of their attachment to General Botha. Deep down in his heart Botha wanted to be free and independent."

"How about Ireland?" I demanded.

The General smiled as he responded: "Our position is different. It does not require dynamite, but education. With us it is a simple matter of the will of the people. I do not think that conditions in South Africa will ever reach the state at which they have arrived in Ireland."

Commenting on the Union and its relations to the British Empire Hertzog continued:

"The Union is not a failure but we could be better governed. The thing to which we take exception is that the British Government, through our connection with it, is in a position by which it gets an undue advantage directly and indirectly to influence legislation. For example, we were not asked to conquer German South-West Africa; it was a command.

"Very much against the feeling of the old population, that is the Dutch element, we were led into participation in the war. Today this old population feels as strongly as ever against South Africa being involved in European politics. It feels that all this Empire movement only leads in that direction and involves us in world conflicts.

"One of the strongest reasons in favor of separation and the setting up of a South African republic is to get solidarity between the English and the Dutch. I cannot help feeling that our interests are being constantly subordinated to those of Great Britain. My firm conviction is that the freer we are, and the more independent of Great Britain we become, the more we shall favor a close co-operation with her. We do not dislike the British as such but we do object to the Britisher coming out as a subject of Great Britain with a superior manner and looking upon the Dutchman as a dependent or a subordinate. There will be a conflict so long as they do not recognize our heroes, traditions and history. In short, we are determined to have a republic of South Africa and England must recognize it. To oppose it is fatal."

"Will you fight for it?" I asked.

"I hardly think that it will come to force," said the General. "It must prevail by reason and education. It may not come in one year but it will come before many years."

Hertzog's feeling is not shared, as he intimated, by the majority of South Africans and this includes many Dutchmen. An illuminating analysis of the Nationalist point of view was made for me by Sir Thomas Smartt, the leader of the Unionist Party and a virile force in South African politics. He brought the situation strikingly home to America when he said:

"The whole Nationalist movement is founded on race. Like the Old Guard, the Boer may die but it is hard for him to surrender. His heart still rankles with the outcome of the Boer War. Would the American South have responded to an appeal to arms in the common cause made by the North in 1876? Probably not. Before your Civil War the South only had individual states. The Boers, on the other hand, had republics with completely organized and independent governments. This is why it will take a long time before complete assimilation is accomplished. A second Boer War is unthinkable."

We can now return to Smuts and find out just how he achieved the miracle by which he not only retained the Premiership but spiked the guns of the opposition.

When I left Capetown he was in a corner. The Nationalist majority not only made his position precarious but menaced the integrity of Union, and through Union, the whole Empire. For five months,—the whole session of Parliament,—he held his ground. Every night when he went to bed at Groote Schuur he did not know what disaster the morrow would bring forth. It was a constant juggle with conflicting interests, ambitions and prejudices. He was like a lion with a pack snapping on all sides.

Now you can see why he sat in that front seat in the House morning, noon and night. He placated the Labourites, harmonized the Unionists, and flung down the gauntlet openly to the Nationalists. Throughout that historic session, and although much legislation was accomplished, he did not permit the consummation of a single decisive division. It was a triumph of parliamentary leadership.

When the session closed in July,—it is then mid-winter in Africa,—he was still up against it. The Nationalist majority was a phantom that dogged his official life and political fortunes. The problem now was to take out sane insurance against a repetition of the trial and uncertainty which he had undergone.

Fate in the shape of the Nationalist Party played into his hands. Under the stimulation of the Nationalists a Vereeniging Congress was called at Bloenfontein late last September. The Dutch word Vereeniging means "reunion." Hertzog and Tielman Roos, the co-leader of the secessionists, believed that by bringing the leading representatives of the two leading parties together the appeal to racial pride might carry the day. Smuts did not attend but various members of his Cabinet did.

Reunion did anything but reunite. The differences on the republican issues being fundamental were likewise irreconcilable. The Nationalists stood pat on secession while the South African Party remained loyal to its principles of Imperial unity. The meeting ended in a deadlock.

Smuts, a field marshal of politics, at once saw that the hour of deliverance from his dilemma had arrived. The Nationalists had declared themselves unalterably for separation. He converted their battle-cry into coin for himself. He seized the moment to issue a call for a new Moderate Party that would represent a fusion of the South Africanists and the Unionists. In one of his finest documents he made a plea for the consolidation of these constructive elements.

In it he said:

The end of October witnessed the ratification of this proposal by the Unionists. The action at once consolidated the Premier's position. I doubt if in all political history you can uncover a series of events more paradoxical or perplexing or find a solution arrived at with greater skill and strategy. It was a revelation of Smuts with his ripe statesmanship put to the test, and not found wanting.

At the election held four months later Smuts scored a brilliant triumph. The South African Party increased its representation by eighteen seats, while the Nationalists lost heavily. The Labour Party was almost lost in the wreckage. The net result was that the Premier obtained a working majority of twenty-two, which guarantees a stable and loyal Government for at least five years.

It only remains to speculate on what the future holds for this remarkable man. South Africa has a tragic habit of prematurely destroying its big men. Rhodes was broken on the wheel at forty-nine, and Botha succumbed in the prime of life. Will Smuts share the same fate?

No one need be told in the face of the Smuts performance that he is a world asset. The question is, how far will he go? A Cabinet Minister at twenty-eight, a General at thirty, a factor in international affairs before he was well into the forties, he unites those rare elements of greatness which seem to be so sparsely apportioned these disturbing days. That he will reconstruct South Africa there is no doubt. What larger responsibilities may devolve upon him can only be guessed.

Just before I sailed from England I talked with a high-placed British official. He is in the councils of Empire and he knows Smuts and South Africa. I asked him to indicate what in his opinion would be the next great milepost of Smuts' progress. He replied:

"The destiny of Smuts is interwoven with the destiny of the whole British Empire. The Great War bound the Colonies together with bonds of blood. Out of this common peril and sacrifice has been knit a closer Imperial kinship. During the war we had an Imperial War Cabinet composed of overseas Premiers, which sat in London. Its logical successor will be a United British Empire, federated in policy but not in administration. Smuts will be the Prime Minister of these United States of Great Britain."

It is the high goal of a high career.

CHAPTER II—"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"

Woven into its fabric is the story of a German conspiracy that was as definite a cause of the Great War as the Balkan mess or any other phase of Teutonic international meddling. Along its highway the American mining engineer has registered a little known evidence of his achievement abroad. The route taps civilization and crosses the last frontiers of progress. The South African end discloses an illuminating example of profitable nationalization. Over it still broods the personality of the man who conceived it and who left his impress and his name on an empire. Attention has been directed anew to the enterprise from the fact that shortly before I reached Africa two aviators flew from Cairo to the Cape and their actual flying time was exactly sixty-eight hours.

The unbroken iron spine that was to link North and South Africa and which Rhodes beheld in his vision of the future, will probably not be built for some years. Traffic in Central Africa at the moment does not justify it. Besides, the navigable rivers in the Belgian Congo, Egypt, and the Soudan lend themselves to the rail and water route which, with one short overland gap, now enables you to travel the whole way from Cape to Cairo.

The very inception of the Cape-to-Cairo project gives you a glimpse of the working of the Rhodes mind. He left the carrying out of details to subordinates. When he looked at the map of Africa,—and he was forever studying maps,—and ran that historic line through it from end to end and said, "It must be all red," he took no cognizance of the extraordinary difficulties that lay in the way. He saw, but he did not heed, the rainbow of many national flags that spanned the continent. A little thing like millions of square miles of jungle, successions of great lakes, or wild and primitive regions peopled with cannibals, meant nothing. Money and energy were to him merely means to an end.

When General "Chinese" Gordon, for example, told him that he had refused a roomful of silver for his services in exterminating the Mongolian bandits Rhodes looked at him in surprise and said: "Why didn't you take it? What is the earthly use of having ideas if you haven't the money with which to carry them out?" Here you have the keynote of the whole Rhodes business policy. A project had to be carried through regardless of expense. It applied to the Cape-to-Cairo dream just as it applied to every other enterprise with which he was associated.

The all-rail route would cost billions upon billions, although now that German prestige in Africa is ended it would not be a physical and political impossibility. A modification of the original plan into a combination rail and river scheme permits the consummation of the vision of thirty years ago. The southern end is all-rail mainly because the Union of South Africa and Rhodesia are civilized and prosperous countries. I made the entire journey by train from Capetown to the rail-head at Bukama in the Belgian Congo, a distance of 2,700 miles, the longest continuous link in the whole scheme. This trip can be made, if desirable, in a through car in about nine days.

I then continued northward, down the Lualaba River,—Livingstone thought it was the Nile—then by rail, and again on the Lualaba through the posts of Kongolo, Kindu and Ponthierville to Stanleyville on the Congo River. This is the second stage of the Cape-to-Cairo Route and knocks off an additional 890 miles and another twelve days. Here I left the highway to Egypt and went down the Congo and my actual contact with the famous line ended. I could have gone on, however, and reached Cairo, with luck, in less than eight weeks.

From Stanleyville you go to Mahagi, which is on the border between the Congo and Uganda. This is the only overland gap in the whole route. It covers roughly,—and the name is no misnomer I am told,—680 miles through the jungle and skirts the principal Congo gold fields. A road has been built and motor cars are available. The railway route from Stanleyville to Mahagi, which will link the Congo and the Nile, is surveyed and would have been finished by this time but for the outbreak of the Great War. The Belgian Minister of the Colonies, with whom I travelled in the Congo assured me that his Government would commence the construction within the next two years, thus enabling the traveller to forego any hiking on the long journey.

Mahagi is on the western side of Lake Albert and is destined to be the lake terminus of the projected Congo-Nile Railway which will be an extension of the Soudan Railways. Here you begin the journey that enlists both railways and steamers and which gives practically a straight ahead itinerary to Cairo. You journey on the Nile by way of Rejaf, Kodok,—(the Fashoda that was)—to Kosti, where you reach the southern rail-head of the Soudan Railways. Thence it is comparatively easy, as most travellers know, to push on through Khartum, Berber, Wady Halfa and Assuan to the Egyptian capital. The distance from Mahagi to Cairo is something like 2,700 miles while the total mileage from Capetown to Cairo, along the line that I have indicated, is 7,000 miles.

This, in brief, is the way you make the trip that Rhodes dreamed about, but not the way he planned it. There are various suggestions for alternate routes after you reach Bukama or, to be more exact, after you start down the first stage of the journey on the Lualaba. At Kabalo, where I stopped, a railroad runs eastward from the river to Albertville, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Rhodes wanted to use the 400-mile waterway that this body of water provides to connect the railway that came down from the North with the line that begins at the Cape. The idea was to employ train ferries. King Leopold of Belgium granted Rhodes the right to do this but Germany frustrated the scheme by refusing to recognize the cession of the strip of Congo territory between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu, which was an essential link.

This incident is one evidence of the many attempts that the Germans made to block the Cape-to-Cairo project. Germany knew that if Rhodes, and through Rhodes the British Empire, could establish through communication under the British flag, from one end of Africa to the other, it would put a crimp into the Teutonic scheme to dominate the whole continent. She went to every extreme to interfere with its advance.

This German opposition provided a reason why the consummation of the project was so long delayed. Another was, that except for the explorer and the big game hunter, there was no particular provocation for moving about in certain portions of Central Africa until recently. But Germany only afforded one obstacle. The British Government, after the fashion of governments, turned a cold shoulder to the enterprise. History was only repeating itself. If Disraeli had consulted his colleagues England would never have acquired the Suez Canal. So it goes.

Most of the Rhodesian links of the Cape-to-Cairo Route were built by Rhodes and the British South Africa Company, while the line from Broken Hill to the Congo border was due entirely to the courage and tenacity of Robert Williams, who is now constructing the so-called Benguella Railway from Lobito Bay in Portuguese Angola to Bukama. It will be a feeder to the Cape-to-Cairo road and constitute a sort of back door to Egypt. It will also provide a shorter outlet to Europe for the copper in the Katanga district of the Congo.

When you see equatorial Africa and more especially that part which lies between the rail-head at Bukama and Mahagi, you understand why the all-rail route is not profitable at the moment. It is for the most part an uncultivated area principally jungle, with scattered white settlements and hordes of untrained natives. The war set back the development of the Congo many years. Now that the world is beginning to understand the possibilities of Central Africa for palm oil, cotton, rubber, and coffee, the traffic to justify the connecting railways will eventually come.

II

Shortly after my return from Africa I was talking with a well-known American business man who, after making the usual inquiries about lions, cannibals and hair-breadth escapes, asked: "Is it dangerous to go about in South Africa?" When I assured him that both my pocket-book and I were safer there than on Broadway in New York or State Street in Chicago, he was surprised. Yet his question is typical of a widespread ignorance about all Africa and even its most developed area.

What people generally do not understand is that the lower part of that one-time Dark Continent is one of the most prosperous regions in the world, where the home currency is at a premium instead of a discount; where the high cost of living remains a stranger and where you get little suggestion of the commercial rack and ruin that are disturbing the rest of the universe. While the war-ravaged nations and their neighbors are feeling their dubious way towards economic reconstruction, the Union of South Africa is on the wave of a striking expansion. It affords an impressive contrast to the demoralized productivity of Europe and for that matter the United States.

South Africa presents many economic features of distinct and unique interest. A glance at its steam transportation discloses rich material. Fundamentally the railroads of any country are the real measures of its progress. In Africa particularly they are the mileposts of civilization. In 1876 there were only 400 miles on the whole continent. Today there are over 30,000 miles. Of this network of rails exactly 11,478 miles are in the Union of South Africa and they comprise the second largest mileage in the world under one management.

More than this, they are Government owned and operated. Despite this usual handicap they pay. No particular love of Government control,—which is invariably an invitation for political influence to do its worst,—animated the development of these railways. As in Australia, where private capital refused to build, it was a case of necessity. In South Africa there was practically no private enterprise to sidestep the obligation that the need of adequate transportation imposed. The country was new, hostile savages still swarmed the frontiers, and the white man had to battle with Zulu and Kaffir for every area he opened. In the absence of navigable rivers—there are none in the Union—the steel rail had to do the pioneering. Besides, the Boers had a strong prejudice against the railroads and regarded the iron horse as a menace to their isolation.

The first steam road on the continent of Africa was constructed by private enterprise from the suburb of Durban in Natal into the town. It was a mile and three-quarters in length and was opened for traffic in 1860. Railway construction in the Cape Colony began about the same time. The Government ownership of the lines was inaugurated in 1873 and it has continued without interruption ever since. The real epoch of railway building in South Africa started with the great mineral discoveries. First came the uncovering of diamonds along the Orange River and the opening up of the Kimberley region, which added nearly 2,000 miles of railway. With the finding of gold in the Rand on what became the site of Johannesburg, another 1,500 miles were added.

Since most nationalized railways do not pay it is interesting to take a look at the African balance sheet. Almost without exception the South African railways have been operated at a considerable net profit. These profits some years have been as high as £2,590,917. During the war, when there was a natural slump in traffic and when all soldiers and Government supplies were carried free of cost, they aggregated in 1915, for instance, £749,125.

One fiscal feature of these South African railroads is worth emphasizing. Under the act of Union "all profits, after providing for interest, depreciation and betterment, shall be utilized in the reduction of tariffs, due regard being had to the agricultural and industrial development within the Union and the promotion by means of cheap transport of the settlement of an agricultural population in the inland portions of the Union." The result is that the rates on agricultural products, low-grade ores, and certain raw materials are possibly the lowest in the world. In other countries rates had to be increased during the war but in South Africa no change was made, so as not to interfere with the agricultural, mineral and industrial development of the country.

Nor is the Union behind in up-to-date transportation. A big program for electrification has been blocked out and a section is under conversion. Some of the power generated will be sold to the small manufacturer and thus production will be increased.

Stimulating the railway system of South Africa is a single personality which resembles the self-made American wizard of transportation more than any other Britisher that I have met with the possible exception of Sir Eric Geddes, at present Minister of Transport of Great Britain and who left his impress on England's conduct of the war. He is Sir William W. Hoy, whose official title is General Manager of the South African Railways and Ports. Big, vigorous, and forward-looking, he sits in a small office in the Railway Station at Capetown, with his finger literally on the pulse of nearly 12,000 miles of traffic. During the war Walker D. Hines, as Director General of the American Railways, was steward of a vaster network of rails but his job was an emergency one and terminated when that emergency subsided. Sir William Hoy, on the other hand, is set to a task which is not equalled in extent, scope or responsibility by any other similar official.

Like James J. Hill and Daniel Willard he rose from the ranks. At Capetown he told me of his great admiration for American railways and their influence in the system he dominates. Among other things he said: "We are taking our whole cue for electrification from the railroads of your country and more especially the admirable precedent established by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. I believe firmly in wide electrification of present-day steam transport. The great practical advantages are more uniform speed and the elimination of stops to take water. It also affords improved acceleration, greater reliability as to timing, especially on heavy grades, and stricter adherence to schedule. There are enormous advantages to single lines like ours in South Africa. Likewise, crossings and train movements can be arranged with greater accuracy, thereby reducing delays. Perhaps the greatest saving is in haulage, that is, in the employment of the heavy electric locomotive. It all tends toward a denser traffic.

"Behind this whole process of electrification lies the need, created by the Great War, for coal conservation and for a motive power that will speed up production of all kinds. We have abundant coal in the Union of South Africa and by consuming less of it on our railways we will be in a stronger position to export it and thus strengthen our international position and keep the value of our money up."

Since Sir William has touched upon the coal supply we at once get a link,—and a typical one—with the ramified resource of the Union of South Africa. No product, not even those precious stones that lie in the bosom of Kimberley, or the glittering golden ore imbedded in the Rand, has a larger political or economic significance just now. Nor does any commodity figure quite so prominently in the march of world events.

In peace, as in war, coal spells life and power. It was the cudgel that the one-time proud and arrogant Germany held menacingly over the head of the unhappy neutral, and extorted special privilege. At the moment I write, coal is the storm center of controversy that ranges from the Ruhr Valley of Germany to the Welsh fields of Britain and affects the destinies of statesmen and of countries. We are not without fuel troubles, as our empty bins indicate. The nation, therefore, with cheap and abundant coal has a bargaining asset that insures industrial peace at home and trade prestige abroad.

South Africa not only has a low-priced and ample coal supply but it is in a convenient point for distribution to the whole Southern hemisphere,—in fact Europe and other sections. On past production the Union ranked only eleventh in a list of coal-producing countries, the output being about 8,000,000 tons a year before the war and something over 10,000,000 tons in 1919. This output, however, is no guide to the magnitude of its fields. Until comparatively recent times they have been little exploited, not because of inferiority but because of the restricted output prior to the new movement to develop a bunker and export trade. Without an adequate geological survey the investigations made during the last twelve months indicate a potential supply of over 60,000,000 tons and immense areas have not been touched at all.

The war changed the whole coal situation. Labour conflicts have reduced the British output; a huge part of Germany's supply must go to France as an indemnity, while our own fields are sadly under-worked, for a variety of causes. All these conditions operate in favor of the South African field, which is becoming increasingly important as a source of supply.

Despite her advantage the prices remain astonishingly low, when you compare them with those prevailing elsewhere. English coal, which in 1912 cost about nine shillings a ton at pithead, costs considerably more than thirty shillings today. The average pithead price of South African coal in 1915 was five shillings twopence a ton and at the time of my visit to South Africa in 1919 was still under seven shillings a ton. Capetown and Durban, the two principal harbours of the Union, are coaling stations of Empire importance. There you can see the flags of a dozen nations flying from ships that have put in for fuel. Thanks to the war these ports are in the center of the world's great trade routes and thus, geographically and economically their position is unique for bunkering and for export.

The price of bunker coal is a key to the increased overhead cost of world trade, as a result of the war. The Belgian boat on which I travelled from the shores of the Congo to Antwerp coaled at Teneriffe, where the price per ton was seven pounds. It is interesting to compare this with the bunker price at Capetown of a little more than two pounds per ton, or at Durban where the rate is one pound ten shillings a ton. In the face of these figures you can readily see what an economic advantage is accruing to the Union of South Africa with reference to the whole vexing question of coal supply.

We can now go into the larger matter of South Africa's business situation in the light of peace and world reconstruction. I have already shown how the war, and the social and industrial upheaval that followed in its wake have enlarged and fortified the coal situation in the Union. Practically all other interests are similarly affected. The outstanding factor in the prosperity of the Union has been the development of war-born self-sufficiency. I used to think during the conflict that shook the world, that this gospel of self-containment would be one of the compensations that Britain would gain for the years of blood and slaughter. So far as Britain is concerned this hope has not been realized. When I was last in England huge quantities of German dyes were being dumped on her shores to the loss and dismay of a new coal-tar industry that had been developed during the war. German wares like toys and novelties were now pouring in. And yet England wondered why her exchange was down!

In South Africa the situation has been entirely different. She alone of all the British dominions is asserting an almost pugnacious self-sufficiency. Cut off from outside supplies for over four years by the relentless submarine warfare, and the additional fact that nearly all the ships to and from the Cape had to carry war supplies or essential products, she was forced to develop her internal resources. The consequence is an expansion of agriculture, industry and manufactures. Instead of being as she was often called, "a country of samples," she has become a domain of active production, as is attested by an industrial output valued at £62,000,000 in 1918. Before the war the British and American manufacturer,—and there is a considerable market for American goods in the Cape Colony,—could undersell the South African article. That condition is changed and the home-made article produced with much cheaper labour than obtains either in Europe or the United States, has the field.

Let me emphasize another striking fact in connection with this South African prosperity. During the war I had occasion to observe at first-hand the economic conditions in every neutral country in Europe. I was deeply impressed with the prosperity of Sweden, Spain and Switzerland, and to a lesser extent Holland, who made hay while their neighbors reaped the tares of war. Japan did likewise. These nations were largely profiteers who capitalized a colossal misfortune. They got much of the benefit and little of the horror of the upheaval.

Not so with South Africa. She played an active part in the war and at the same time brought about a legitimate expansion of her resources. One point in her favor is that while she sent tens of thousands of her sons to fight, her own territory escaped the scar and ravage of battle. All the fighting in Africa, so far as the Union was concerned, was in German South-West Africa and German East Africa. After my years in tempest-tossed Europe it was a pleasant change to catch the buoyant, confident, unwearied spirit of South Africa.

I have dwelt upon coal because it happens to be a significant economic asset. Coal is merely a phase of the South African resources. In 1919 the Union produced £35,000,000 in gold and £7,200,000 in diamonds. The total mining production was, roughly, £50,000,000. This mining treasure is surpassed by the agricultural output, of which nearly one-third is exported. Land is the real measure of permanent wealth. The hoard of gold and diamonds in time becomes exhausted but the soil and its fruits go on forever.

The moment you touch South African agriculture you reach a real romance. Nowhere, not even in the winning of the American West by the Mormons, do you get a more dramatic spectacle of the triumph of the pioneer over combative conditions. The Mormons made the Utah desert bloom, and the Boers and their British colleagues wrested riches from the bare veldt. The Mormons fought Indians and wrestled with drought, while the Dutch in Africa and their English comrades battled with Kaffirs, Hottentots and Zulus and endured a no less grilling exposure to sun.

The crops are diversified. One of the staples of South Africa, for example, is the mealie, which is nothing more or less than our own American corn, but not quite so good. It provides the principal food of the natives and is eaten extensively by the European as well. On a dish of mealie porridge the Kaffir can keep the human machine going for twenty-four hours. Its prototype in the Congo is manice flour. In the Union nearly five million acres are under maize cultivation, which is exactly double the area in 1911. The value of the maize crop last year was approximately a million six hundred thousand pounds. Similar expansion has been the order in tobacco, wheat, fruit, sugar and half a dozen other products.

South Africa is a huge cattle country. The Boers have always excelled in the care of live stock and it is particularly due to their efforts that the Union today has more than seven million head of cattle, which represents another hundred per cent increase in less than ten years.

This matter of live stock leads me to one of the really picturesque industries of the Union which is the breeding of ostriches, "the birds with the golden feathers." Ask any man who raises these ungainly birds and he will tell you that with luck they are far better than the proverbial goose who laid the eighteen-karat eggs. The combination of F's—femininity, fashion and feathers—has been productive of many fortunes. The business is inclined to be fickle because it depends upon the female temperament. The ostrich feather, however, is always more or less in fashion. With the outbreak of the war there was a tremendous slump in feathers, which was keenly felt in South Africa. With peace, the plume again became the thing and the drooping industry expanded with get-rich-quick proportions.

Port Elizabeth in the Cape Colony is the center of the ostrich feather trade. It is the only place in the world, I believe, devoted entirely to plumage. Not long before I arrived in South Africa £85,000 of feathers were disposed of there in three days. It is no uncommon thing for a pound of prime plumes to fetch £100. The demand has become so keen that 350,000 ostriches in the Union can scarcely keep pace with it. Before the war there were more than 800,000 of these birds but the depression in feathers coupled with drought, flood and other causes, thinned out the ranks. It takes three years for an ostrich chick to become a feather producer.

America has a considerable part in shaping the ostrich feather market. As with diamonds, we are the largest consumers. You can go to Port Elizabeth any day and find a group of Yankees industriously bidding against each other. On one occasion two New York buyers started a competition that led to an eleven weeks orgy that registered a total net sale of more than £100,000 of feathers. They are still talking about it down there.

South Africa has not only expanded in output but her area is also enlarged. The Peace Conference gave her the mandate for German South-West Africa, which was the first section of the vanished Teutonic Empire in Africa. It occupies more than a quarter of the whole area of the continent south of the Zambesi River. While the word "mandate" as construed by the peace sharks at Paris is supposed to mean the amiable stewardship of a country, it really amounts to nothing more or less than an actual and benevolent assimilation. This assimilation is very much like the paternal interest that holding companies in the good old Wall Street days felt for small and competitive concerns. In other words, it is safe to assume that henceforth German South-West Africa will be a permanent part of the Union.

The Colony's chief asset is comprised in the so-called German South-West African Diamond Fields, which, with the Congo Diamond Fields, provide a considerable portion of the small stones now on the market. These two fields are alike in that they are alluvial which means that the diamonds are easily gathered by a washing process. No shafts are sunk. It is precisely like gold washing.

The German South-West mines have an American interest. In the reorganization following the conquest of German South-West Africa by the South African Army under General Botha the control had to become Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-American Corporation which has extensive interests in South Africa and which is financed by London and New York capitalists, the latter including J. P. Morgan, Charles H. Sabin and W. B. Thompson, acquired these fields. It is an interesting commentary on post-war business readjustment to discover that there is still a German interest in these mines. It makes one wonder if the German will ever be eradicated from his world-wide contact with every point of commercial activity.

It is not surprising, therefore, that South Africa, in the light of all the facts that I have enumerated, should be prosperous. Take the money, always a test of national economic health. At Capetown I used the first golden sovereign that I had seen since early in 1914. This was not only because the Union happens to be a great gold-producing country but because she has an excess of exports over imports. Her money, despite its intimate relation with that of Great Britain, which has so sadly depreciated, is at a premium.

I got expensive evidence of this when I went to the bank at Capetown to get some cash. I had a letter of credit in terms of English pounds. To my surprise, I only got seventeen shillings and sixpence in African money for every English pound, which is nominally worth twenty shillings. Six months after I left, this penalty had increased to three shillings. To such an extent has the proud English pound sterling declined and in a British dominion too!

South Africa has put an embargo on the export of sovereigns. One reason was that during the first three years of the war a steady stream of these golden coins went surreptitiously to East India, where an unusually high premium for gold rules, especially in the bazaars. The goldsmiths find difficulty in getting material. The inevitable smuggling has resulted. In order to put a check on illicit removal, all passengers now leaving the Union are searched before they board their ships. Nor is it a half-hearted procedure. It is as drastic as the war-time scrutiny on frontiers.

To sum up the whole business situation in the Union of South Africa is to find that the spirit of production,—the most sorely needed thing in the world today—is that of persistent advance. I dwell on this because it is in such sharp contrast with what is going on throughout the rest of a universe that staggers under sloth, and where the will-to-work has almost become a lost art. That older and more complacent order which is represented for example by France, Italy and England may well seek inspiration from this South African beehive.