ABSTRACT
In the darkest hour of the night of laissez-aller, the Colonial Institute was started to resist the policy of drift, so, in the dawn of the daytime of Greater Britain, the Imperial Federation League was formed to give a practical embodiment to the vague aspirations of the time. The Colonies do not sufficiently tax themselves for the purpose of Imperial Defence, therefore let a brand new body take the subject in hand. In discussing the general question of development by means of Chartered Companies, a broad distinction must be drawn between Companies administering lands where Europeans can only go and trade, as on the Niger, and Companies administering lands where the climate permits European immigration, as in Rhodesia. The importance of the Convention lies not so much in its actual provisions as in the fact that it remains the only outward and visible sign of the pre-eminence of Great Britain in South Africa.
