the two stand before the law exactly on the same ground. The "iron-rodder" desires to get work out of the black man;—and so do I, and so does every friend of the black man. The question is how the work shall be got out of them. "Make him work," says the iron-rodder. "There he is, idle, fat as a pig on stolen mutton, and doing nothing; with thews and sinews by which I could be made so comfortable, if only I could use them." "But how are you entitled to his work?" is the answer readiest at hand. "Because he steals my cattle," says the iron-rodder, generally with a very limited amount of truth and less of logic. Because his cattle have been stolen once or twice he would subject the whole race to slavery,—unconscious that the slave's work, if he could get it, would in the long run be very much less profitable to him than the free labour by which, in spite of all his assertions to the contrary, he does till his land, and herd his cattle, and shear his sheep and garner his wealth.
Then comes the question of the franchise. He who would give the black man a vote is generally the black man's most advanced friend, the direct enemy of the iron-rodder, and is to be found in London rather than in South Africa. To such a one I would say certainly let the black man have the franchise on the same terms as the white man. In broadening or curtailing the privilege of voting there should be no expressed reference to colour. The word should not appear in any Act of any Parliament by which the franchise is regulated. If it be so expressed there cannot be that equality before the law without which we cannot divest ourselves of the sin of selfish ascendancy. But the franchise may be so
