reports. There are only two points in it to which I would call attention here, because they have a special bearing on this question of the cohesion of the two races.
The first is the improvement of means of communication. Something like 800 miles of new railways have already been constructed in the two Colonies since the war; another 800 are in course of construction; and provision has been made for nearly 500 more. Thirteen hundred miles of roads have been made fit for traffic in the Transvaal alone, and twenty-seven permanent bridges have been built in their course. The second point is the establishment from the days of the war itself of a broad and comprehensive system of free education. The building of 'half a dozen very large town schools, between twenty and thirty town schools of average size, and no fewer than 152 farm schools' (I take these figures, like the others, from Lord Milner's great apologia for the Transvaal Administration in his farewell speech at Pretoria)—this speaks for itself. So does the fact that the number of children being educated in these Government schools is already more than twice the number of the best of the pre-war days. Railways and education—these above all are the means which are the most obviously destined to bring town and country together, and to give the rising generation a common tradition and a common language.
And as for results, it is frankly impossible in this matter of the two races to paint as yet a glowing picture of confidence and harmony restored. All that can be said at present is this: British and Dutch are at last coming to understand one another's point of view. They are daily found in closer personal contact. The country is beginning to wear, as it never did before, the aspect of a progressive and civilized State; and more Englishmen are deciding every year that it is a place in which they can settle down and make a home for their children. The backveld Boers are learning to think for themselves, and to admit that, after all, it is no very
