and on enquiry I find that about 150,000 souls belong to the Dutch Reformed and Lutheran Churches,—leaving 85,000 of English descent in the Colony. If to these we add the 20,000 white persons inhabiting Natal, and 15,000 at the Diamond Fields, we shall have the total English population of South Africa;—for the Europeans of the Transvaal, as of the Orange Free State, are a Dutch people. There are therefore about 120,000 persons of British descent in these South African districts,—the number being little more than that of the people of the small unobtrusive Colony which we call Tasmania.
I hope that nobody will suppose from this that I regard a Dutch subject of the British Crown as being less worthy of regard than an English subject. My remarks are not intended to point in that direction, but to show what is the nature of our duties in South Africa. Thus are there about 220,000[1] persons of Dutch descent, though the emigrants from Holland to that land during the present century have been but few;—so few that I have found no trace of any batch of such emigrants; and there are but 120,000 of English descent although the country has belonged to England for three-quarters of a century! The enquirer is thus driven to the conclusion that South Africa has hardly answered the purpose of a British Colony.
And I hope that nobody will suppose from this that I regard the coloured population of Africa as being unworthy
- ↑
Cape Colony 150,000
Orange Free State 30,000
The Transvaal 40,000
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220,000
