African statesmen to meet in friendly discussion of the outstanding points of intercolonial difference. Of the formal meetings of this kind the most notable has been the great Conference which assembled at Bloemfontein in March, 1908, just nine months after the close of the war. Here, under the presidency of the High Commissioner, met for the first time representatives of all the South African Colonies, the Prime Ministers of Cape Colony and Natal, and the heads of the Administration of me new Colonies and of Rhodesia, and one immediate result was a Customs Union embracing the whole of British South Africa. No doubt it is easy to exaggerate the completeness of this Union. Under the present arrangement each Colony keeps its own separate receipts, the collection being made at a price by the coast Colonies on behalf of their inland neighbours. It is a wasteful system, and still admits of friction; but it was impossible in the abnormal conditions prevailing after the war to bring the various States into even line, and each claimed separate temporary modifications of the Convention for its own special benefit. A true Customs Union will pool the receipts, and distribute them to its members on a fixed basis of calculation, the expenses of a single Customs administration being similarly distributed. But when all is said, the Union of 1908 remains no inconsiderable achievement, when it is remembered that the Customs differences of the Australian Colonies were still provoking troublesome controversy, even after federation. And the assembling of such a Conference at all was in itself a sufficiently satisfactory sign of the times.
A far more serious cause of quarrel is the struggle of three coast States—Cape Colony, Natal, and Portuguese East Africa—for the traffic of the inland Colonies in their ports and over their railway systems. There will be enough and to spare for all of them, and the real problem is to apportion the shares in the most economical way. But unless the railways can all be placed under a single authority it will be difficult to prevent a waste-
