this year suspended the operations of some of the principal hydraulic mines of California may lessen by some millions the gold-harvest; but the movement to restrain the hydraulic miners from washing their tailings into the valleys, where they fill up the beds of the streams and destroy agricultural lands, is in itself an evidence of a growing conservatism of feeling of the increasing disposition to look upon California as a country in which permanent homes are to be made. In the agricultural capabilities of her soil lie the possibilities of her greatest wealth. The wheat-crop of last year, after supplying all home demands, including that of distilling, gave a surplus for export of no less than 1,400,000 tons-a surplus worth, even at the low rates that prevailed on account of the scarcity of tonnage, $37,500,000, or more than twice the whole bullion product of the State. Or, in other words, the wheat-crop of California for 1880 was worth more than half as much as the bullion product of the whole United States.

Among the most valuable of her industries in the future will be those of the vineyard and the orchard. The natural adaptation of the soil and the climate has been proved beyond a question. The grape-growers of the State can now sell their grapes with as much certainty as the farmer his wheat. There is now sent to the Atlantic coast more wine than is imported from France, and it is estimated that the wine-crop of last year yielded to the growers nearly $3,500,000. The curing and packing of raisins has only recently commenced, but it is already an assured industry.

In San Francisco, in Alameda, and San José are fruit-canning establishments which, during the busy season, employ over a thousand hands apiece, and all over the State, wherever there is an important fruit district, this industry is rapidly developing. Orchards of the finer varieties of peaches, plums, pears, nectarines, etc., are being set out in all parts of the State, and in the southern section the culture of semitropical fruit is attaining large dimensions.

The question arising under the new Constitution relative to the taxation of certificates of stock by assessors of taxes was also decided by the Supreme Court. The opinion was delivered by Justice Ross in the case of Burke vs. the Assessor. He held that the Constitution of the State does not require or authorize double taxation. On the contrary, its language clearly prohibits it. The stock of any corporation consists of its franchise and such other property as the corporation may own. When, therefore, all of the property of the corporation is assessed-its franchise and all of its other prop. erty of every character-then all of the stock of the corporation is assessed, and the mandate of the Constitution is complied with. This property is held by the corporation in trust for stockholders, who are beneficial owners of it in certain proportions called shares, and which are usually evidenced by certificates of stock.

The share of each stockholder is undoubtedly property, but it is an interest in the very property held by the corporation, nothing more. When the property of a corporation is assessed to it, and the tax thereon paid, who but the stockholders pay it? It is true that it is paid from the treasury of the corporation before the money therein is divided, but it is substantially the same thing as if paid from the pockets of the individual stockholders.

At the presidential election in 1880, the official count of the vote was as follows:

The compilation of the returns of the census are so incomplete as to add nothing to the aggregate statistics of population in the previous volume.

CANAL, INTEROCEANIC. (See PANAMA CANAL.)

CAPE COLONY AND BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA. The present Constitution of the Cape Colony vests the executive power in the Governor and an Executive Council, composed of certain office-holders appointed by the Crown. The legislative power rests with a Legislative Council of twenty-one members, ten of whom are elected for ten years, and eleven for five years, representing the country districts and towns of the colony. The qualification for members of the Council is possession of immovable property of £2,000, or movable property worth £4,000. Members of both Houses are elected by the same voters, who are qualified by possession of property, or receipt of salary or wages, ranging between twenty-five and fifty pounds sterling per annum. There were 45,825 registered electors in 1878. The Governor is, by virtue of his office, commander-in-chief of the forces within the colony. He has a salary of £5,000 as Governor, besides £1,000 as "her Majesty's High Commissioner," and an additional £300 as "allowance for country residence." The administration is carried on under the Governor, by a ministry of five members, called the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, the

At the close of 1878, 663 miles of railway were in operation in Cape Colony.

The Cape settlements are bound to Great Britain by looser ties of interest and sentiment than any of the other dependencies of the empire. The bond has not been strengthened by the cares and difficulties which they have given to every English administration, and the incessant loss of British blood and treasure in unpopular Caffre wars which the connection has entailed since the first annexation in 1812. More than two thirds of the Queen's subjects in South Africa are aliens in blood, language, and customs, while the commercial and military advantages of the connection bear no proportion to the sacrifices it has cost. For these reasons the home Government and the British

public have long desired to see the plan of autonomous government and self-dependence realized in these troublesome dependencies. The complicated relations of the British Government with the Anglo-Saxon settlers, the Afrikanders, and the native populations, which under the management of ignorant military commanders and crown officials involved the commission of the numberless wrongs and cruelties of the past, still stand in the way of England's withdrawing her aid and authority from the Cape. The fixed idea of an administrative theorist, adopted as a practical policy for the consummation of this object, was one of the chief causes which led to the last three

For the first six months of the year only.

wars which have afflicted these ill-fated communities. Lord Carnarvon, after the happy effects of the confederation act in Canada became apparent, conceived the idea of uniting all the European settlements of South Africa under a similar confederate government, to which the virtual sovereignty should be transferred. This scheme was adopted as the traditional policy in Downing Street, and was enthusiastically pursued by the Queen's representatives at the Cape. The Transvaal was annexed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone in April, 1877, in a way which the people of Great Britain have only come to understand since the rebellion of the Boers. The usurpation was excused on the pretext that the people of the republic were misgoverned by their own authorities to such an extent that they hailed British rule with thanksgiving. Zoolooland was then invaded, with scarcely any pretext, for the object of rendering the Boers content with the annexation, and to remove a possible danger to the future confederation, and induce Cape Colony to join it by crushing the only organized and formidable native power in this part of Africa. This disastrous war, which cost £5,000,000 and thinned the ranks of British regiments, excited a strong repugnance in Great Britain to any further military operations in South Africa, although the entire responsibility for the Zooloo campaign lies at the door of the Imperial Government. The people of Cape Colony, who had possessed responsible government since 1872, were given to under

their own defenses. Thereupon the colonial stand that for the future they must undertake ministry under Mr. Sprigg instituted a course of arbitrary policy entirely in the spirit of Sir Bartle Frere's Zooloo stroke.

The Basutos of Basutoland, a laborious, pastoral, and agricultural people, who were becoming rapidly civilized and Christianized, populous and wealthy, had the custom of buyfire-arms from the wall except on one or two ing every man a gun. They never took their occasions, when they did valiant service for the Queen, affording conspicuous assistance in the late Zooloo war. With frightful rashness, a disarmament act was carried through the Legislature, and the command went forth that the Basutos should deliver up their guns. The French Protestant missionaries who lived among them protested against the injustice of the demand. Sir Garnet Wolseley warned the home Government of its impolicy and danger. The Basutos regarded these weapons diamonds were discovered in West Griquaas a badge of manhood and dignity. When land, the Basutos were the first and principal laborers; and each took home as his richest reward a gun which he had purchased at an exorbitant price. The command to give up the weapons which they had been encouraged to acquire, was regarded by every one as an unmerited disgrace. Letsie, the principal chief, and his people, who remained loyal throughout

the war, remonstrated in the following pathetic terms: "Hitherto we have been known first as the faithful friends and allies of the Queen, and then as her faithful subjects. Up to the Zambesi and down to Cape Town we are known as such-we are named the children of the Queen. If we are disarmed, will not other tribes say that we have offended against the Government?"

The political position of the Basutos was anomalous. When they swore allegiance to the crown in 1869, it was with the stipulation that they should not form part of Cape Colony, and they were not, until 1879, when the act conferring autonomy upon the colony heedlessly turned them over to the tender mercies of the Cape Government. The Basutos were a branch of the Bechuana tribe, one of the most superior and intelligent races of the Bantu family. After the formation of the tribe in Basutoland they became involved in constant disputes with the Orange Free State Boers on one side and the Zooloos on the other, and, when these growing states menaced them with extinction, they appealed to the British authorities for protection, and were accepted as British subjects. Their subsequent history is one of peaceful prosperity and advancement unexampled among African races. They grew rich in cattle, horses, and grain; built houses, schools, and churches; and were tenderly loyal until the offensive orders to deliver up their lawfully acquired weapons. Letsie and his tribe complied, but their arms were intercepted and seized before their delivery by the indignant majority. The invasion of Basutoland by the Cape militia and the earlier stages of the war of resistance are recounted in the "Annual Cyclopædia" for 1880.

The Basutos made skirmishing assaults in the beginning of January upon the towns of Maseru and Leribe and the picket-line of Colonel Carrington's advancing column. In a vigorous attack on the 10th the Burgher Guards gave way, and the field was held only by a line of dismounted cavalry. The burghers were suspected of being actuated by sympathy for the Transvaal rebels, and a large number of them were sentenced to imprisonment. The Basutos were becoming weary of fighting and suffered for want of food. They sued for peace, and an armistice of seven days was granted on the 18th for them to consider the Governor's answer. They did not accept the proposals through distrust, and desired to settle the terms with the imperial authorities. Active hostilities were not resumed again, with the exception of a few fitful attacks. The imperial authorities refused to intervene unless the Colonial Government should resign the control of Basutoland entirely. This a considerable party in the colony desired to do. Sir Hercules Robinson finally, at the request of the Basuto chiefs and by desire of the Cape ministry, arranged the conditions for the cessation of the ineffectual struggle. The Basutos were

to pay a fine of 5,000 cattle to the Cape Government, to restore property taken from loyal natives, and to pay £1 annual license fee for the privilege of keeping a gun, and should enjoy entire amnesty and suffer no confiscation of territory. It was found impossible to thoroughly enforce the provisions of the agreement.

The outbreak of the Transvaal rebellion is noticed in the "Annual Cyclopædia" for 1880. The Boers had reasons to dread the aggressions of the British. Their ancestors were driven by wrongs and indignities to abandon their homes in the old colony and go into the unexplored wilderness. The Republic of Natalia which they founded no sooner began to prosper than it was invaded and conquered by British troops. The Boers again abandoned their fertile fields for the bleak desert. They founded the independent South African republics. In 1848 the land between the Vaal and Orange Rivers was annexed by Great Britain,' and then the land between the upper Caledon and the Vaal. This act drove them to rebel, and the British chased them into the unknown wilderness beyond the Vaal. In 1852 a convention was signed, guaranteeing to the Boers north of the Vaal River "the right to manage their own affairs, and to govern themselves according to their own laws." When the Transvaal was annexed after twentyfive years of tranquillity, the population had increased to between thirty and forty thousand whites, and the revenue to about £70,000. The annexation met the clamorous approval of a class of British traders and land speculators who had flocked into the Transvaal after the gold discoveries, adventurers who sought pecuniary profit in the disturbance of rights which would ensue. The prospect that President Burgers's projected railroad to Delagoa Bay would deprive Durban of the Transvaal trade was a strong secret motive with English colonists for demanding the annexation. A financial and political crisis of the Transvaal Government furnished the occasion for the usurpation. The fear that financial aid would be furnished for Burgers's project of establishing a Transvaal port, which might be followed by a German protectorate, was one of the state reasons for the step. The Boers themselves were undoubtedly almost unanimously opposed. The formal protest of President Burgers at the time, the two visits of the delegates, Joubert and Kruger, to England, and the mass-meetings of remonstrance, should have left no doubt of the rooted aversion of the Boers to British dominion.

The arrogance and unfitness of the administrator set over the Transvaal, Sir Owen Lanyon, and the other British officials, was one of the proximate causes of the outbreak. During the agitation which lasted throughout the three years of British administration, and during and at the close of their desperate rebellion, the Boer leaders and representative men iterated and reiterated the conditions under which a

connection with the British Empire would be endurable to the Boer people, conditions which it required the deplorable war to make clear to the British Parliament and people, and which were at last freely accorded before a British force had set foot across the Transvaal boundary, though defeat following defeat had brought the blush of shame into many Englishmen's faces and stirred thoughts of revenge in their hearts, and although enough British troops had just landed in Natal to speedily exterminate the valiant descendants of Huguenot refugees and stalwart Dutch pioneers.

One of the strongest reasons for the annexation had been the frequent difficulties of the Boers with the native tribes. The principal danger had been averted by the extinction of the Zooloo power, accompanied by the reversal of the British commissioners' decision on the chief matter in dispute, their award to Cetewayo of the land which he had formally ceded to the Transvaal, and which had already been settled by Transvaal farmers. The cession of Keate's award, in which diamonds had been discovered, to natives by a British arbitrator, probably preparatory to engrossing it in the British dominion, as had been done with West Griqualand, was another instance of the obliquity of British arbitrations. Nevertheless the Boers were content from the beginning to refer boundary questions and disputes with the aborigines to English adjudication, and much more so after the punishment of their old enemies the Zooloos. If it had not been for the wars with Cetewayo and Secocoeni, the Boers would have struck earlier for independence.

In the middle of December, 1880, the republican flag was raised in Heidelberg, a Volksraad was convened, and the South African Republic proclaimed. The Boer Government was originally composed of Kruger as President; Joubert, Commandant-General; Jorissen, Attorney-General; and Bok, acting State Secretary. Pretorius was afterward associated with Kruger and Joubert in the supreme direction. A proclamation of the Boer Government set forth their desire to form a confederacy with the other colonies and states; their willingness to receive a British resident diplomatic agent to represent the interests of British subjects; and also to submit to arbitration their disputes over boundaries with native tribes. Besides the quarrel concerning a small tract in the southeast, which had led to the Zooloo war, there was the standing difficulty about the large and fertile region in the southwest corner of the Transvaal, called the Keate award, which the British referee had awarded unconditionally to native claimants, and the vast region of the northeast from which the Boer settlers had been expelled by native tribes who had been for a long time in possession of the entire country. The titles to lands in this reconquered territory had been bought up by speculators.

The first engagement of the war was the

surprise and surrender of a detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel Anstruther, at Bronker's Spruit, while marching from Middleburg to Pretoria, December 20, 1880. The rebellion of the Boers, with the triumvirate, Paul Kruger, Pretorius, and Joubert, at the head, was in full operation at the beginning of January, 1881. British garrisons were beleaguered in Pretoria and Potchefstroom. The Boers secured Natal as far as Newanka, and took possession of the Barkly district of Griqualand West. Sir George Colley was mustering his forces at Newcastle, with about fifteen hundred within call; while re-enforcements from India and Gibraltar were on the sea. General Colley advanced his column slowly toward Pretoria. The means of transport were nearly all in the possession of the Boers and their sympathizers. On the 28th of January he attempted to force the pass of the Drakensberg at Laing's Neck, which the Boers were massed to defend. The republicans displayed steadiness and courage of the highest order, and repulsed the rash British commander with severe losses. The Fiftyeighth Regiment, which stormed the strong intrenched position of the Boers, was driven back with terrible slaughter. Many of the officers were picked off by sharp-shooters. Sir George Colley was now himself hemmed in on all sides. In an attempt to restore communications with Newcastle he was attacked by the Boers near the crossing of the Ingogo, February 8th, and lost one hundred and fifty men and six officers.

Re-enforcements landed at Durban at this juncture, when every British force in Africa was surrounded by the Boers, of whom 10,000 to 12,000 were under arms. They withdrew beyond the Drakensberg and perfected the fortifications at Laing's Neck as Sir Evelyn Wood brought up re-enforcements to Newcastle. Proposals for a treaty had already come from Kruger, and had been forwarded to England, when General Colley proceeded to occupy with about 700 men the height of the Spitzkop on Majuba Mountain, which commanded the Boers' position. On the following day, February 27th, the Boers carried the eminence by storm, with the most heroic exertions. The British commander, Sir George Pomeroy Colley, who was also the High Commissioner for Southeast Africa, was slain with 82 others, and 184 were disabled or captured. The repeated successes which the Dutch farmers gained over the British regulars were won in nearly every instance with astonishingly small numbers, although the morale of the British troops was not particularly defective. They were due to their desperate and religious devotion to the cause in which they were engaged, not less than to their splendid marksmanship with the rifle, and their alert and intelligent tactics. Sir Frederick Roberts was now appointed commander-in-chief, and about 15,000 troops were sent to the field of action from all parts of the empire. Before his arrival Sir Evelyn Wood, acting under instruc

tions from home, and Commandant-General Joubert, had arranged an armistice, procured through the intermediation of President Brand, of the Orange River Republic, to allow time for Kruger and the Boer authorities to consider terms of peace which the Imperial Government offered. Under the terms of the armistice the English were permitted to provision their beleaguered garrisons in Potchefstroom, Pretoria, Wakkerstroom, and Standerton with a week's rations. Before the supply - train reached Potchefstroom, the garrison surrendered, March 21st, giving up their guns and departing on parole for Natal. The withhold ing from the besieged force knowledge of the approach of succor was adjudged a violation of the armistice, and it was agreed to allow the fort to be reoccupied, to restore the status quo ante.

The strongest sympathy with the Boers and indignation at the course of Great Britain prevailed among the entire Dutch population of South Africa. It was this state of feeling which was advanced as the reason for taking vengeance upon the insurgents. The apprehensions caused by the known tension among the old families were augmented by a manifesto of Kruger, which said that, whether the Boers were now successful or not, the struggle would lead to the redemption of the colonies from the British yoke, and independence, like that achieved by the American colonies, when "Africa will be for the Afrikander from the Zambesi to Martin's Bay." The people of Holland and Belgium manifested publicly their sense of England's injustice, and a large section of the British public expressed the same sentiment. Public men in Germany, in France, and in other Continental countries set their names to memorials pleading for the bestowal of independence upon the Transvaal.

The negotiations with the Boers were concluded by their acceptance of the terms of peace, March 21st, subject to their final agreement in the decisions of a royal commission settling the details of boundaries and questions of the rights of natives. The commission was to consist of Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of Cape Colony and High Commissioner for South Africa, President, and Sir Henry De Villiers, Chief-Justice of the Cape, and Sir Evelyn Wood, associate members. The Boers agreed to withdraw from Laing's Neck and disperse to their homes. The English garrisons should remain as they were pending the final settlement, but no troops or munitions of war were to be sent into the Transvaal. The main principles of the treaty were that the Boers should enjoy complete independence in making and administering their own laws; but the right to regulate and superintend their relations with the native population, which numbers nearly 700,000, the adjustment of frontier questions with the resident and neighboring tribes, and the control of foreign relations, were reserved by the Imperial Government,

represented by the High Commissioner in Cape Town, and in the Transvaal by a resident imperial agent. This peculiar form of a protectorate was defined under the new term of the suzerainty of the Queen. The determination of the rights and claims of the natives and of provisions for the protection of native interests was the task imposed upon the commissioners, who immediately commenced their labors. They were also empowered by the terms of the settlement to decide the question of the severance from the Transvaal of portions of the territory in the east and northeast settled by natives, and thus separate the Zooloo and Swazi districts from the Transvaal. The last proposition was loudly condemned by the Boer people. After the conclusion of this preliminary settlement, the Boers departed for their farms. The British commander, General Wood, did not decrease his armaments, but prepared vigorously for the case of a renewal of the war.

After many difficulties and compromises a convention was settled between the Boer authorities and the commissioners on the 8th of August. The Transvaal Government undertook the debt of £425,893, payable in twentyseven years, at 43 per cent interest, on account of the liabilities which the British Government had assumed at the annexation, and the expenses of Secocoeni's war. The Boers and the British each agreed to reimburse sufferers of damages through the military operations. The convention was ratified by the Volksraad in October.

The Cape Parliament met March 25th. The Premier of Cape Colony, Gordon Sprigg, the author of the Basuto war, was nearly removed from office in April by a vote of censure, for raising, on his own responsibility, a loan of £1,250,000, for the prosecution of that unfortunate military essay, and for the other war expenditures of the colony. The war itself was not condemned by either the West or the East colonists, the Afrikander or the English section of the community. Mr. Sprigg represented more especially the English element, as opposed to the Dutch, and the aggressive spirit of the former Imperial Government. He had been called upon by Sir Bartle Frere three years before to succeed Molteno, who had been arbitrarily dismissed while still backed by a parliamentary majority. Upon a subsequent renewal of Mr. Scanlan's motion, Mr. Sprigg resigned. A new ministry was formed, composed of Mr. Molteno, the Prime Minister whom Sir Bartle Frere had removed, Colonial Secretary; Mr. Hutton, Treasurer - General; Mr. Scanlan, Attorney-General and Premier; Mr. Merriman, Commissioner of Crown Lands and Public Works; Mr. Sauer, Secretary for Native Affairs; Mr. Hoffmeyer, without a portfolio.

In the budget of the Cape Treasurer the revenue of the colony for 1881 is estimated at £2,968,210, and the expenditure at £2,852,083.