But how does the scene at Bulawayo affect the political world? It seems
to me to have great importance for all South African and British
politicians for the way it affects Germany, Portugal, the Congo Free
State, and Cape Colony. It will cause people to revise their opinions,
and to clear their minds of all previous policies. Any influence that
Germany may have hoped to exercise on South African politics has
received a check by the insuperable barrier that has been created by
those slender lines of steel between its South-West African Colony and
the Dutch Republics. The Bechuana Crown Colony and Protectorate,
through which they run, must receive a percentage of all immigrants to
Rhodesia. These last two are far in advance of the German Colony, and
each day must see them strengthened, so that they will become formidable
obstacles in the way of German aspirations. These colonies lying along
the length of the western frontier of the Transvaal State are four times
larger than the Transvaal, and their grand stock-raising areas and
agricultural plains having now become easily accessible, cannot remain
long unoccupied. I fancy, therefore, that the ambition of Germany to
rival our claims to the paramountcy will become wholly extinguished now,
and that her thinkers, like wise men, will prepare their minds for the
new problems which must be met in a not remote future.