Cape Colony, though much is due to it for its support of the Bechuana
railway, is not wholly free from the blame of inertness in the past.
One cannot look at the map of Africa and miss seeing that extraordinary
territory labelled German close to Cape Colony, without being reminded
of the obtuseness shown by the Cape democracy. But the Germans are a
great nation, rich, commerce-loving, and enterprising, and the Cape
people need to be warned, considering that they are largely mixed up
with Dutch Boers who are slow to move and sadly behind the times. If
the Germans chose to invest 4,000,000 pounds in railways from the mouth
of the Swakop to the banks of the Orange, they would be formidable
competitors for the trade of Bechuanaland and the north of the colony,
and Swakop is three days nearer Europe than Table Bay. The railways in
America created cities and filled the wastes with settlers, and every
new settler was supposed to be worth 200 pounds to the nation; and in
that country they have a mile of railway to every twenty square miles of
country.
The Cape has but a mile of railway to every 112 square miles. The
railways should spread out like a fan from Cape Town. The existing
lines require straightening greatly. It is not good policy that the
line to Natal should run through alien States, nor is it conducive to
the development of the Colony. Some railways may not show large
dividends, but they are indispensable to development and communication:
they give value to acres which otherwise would be worthless, and
indirectly contribute to revenue in other ways than by dividends. Hence
Cape Colony may learn a good deal from this new railway.