The treaty policy had broken down.

The treaty policy had broken down. It had originated in an attempt to please both the English humanitarian and the English taxpayer, but. although Stockenstrom, who may be regarded as the principal author of the policy, was a man of long colonial experience, it was all along too much of an English and too little of a colonial policy. Stockenstrom's long views soon lost most of their influence. 'The treaties were judged more and more exclusively as police measures for the protection of the farmers' cattle'; I and it was almost inevitable that they should be so judged, for the frontier was preoccupied with the question of security. The colonists doubtless expected the impossible, and the economic progress of the eastern districts during these years, and particularly the expansion of wool-growing, testifies to some exaggeration on their part of the grievances from which they suffered. But their grievances existed, and naturally loomed large in the eyes of harassed administrators. The whole treaty policy was obnoxious to colonial opinion; it is hardly possible to condemn the men who had to administer it for attempting to remedy the grievances by tinkering with the treaties. It may well be that, taking the long as opposed to the short view, the Kaffirs required to be protected against colonial land-grabbing more than the colonists against Kaffir cattle-stealing; but the colonists were right in thinking that security must somehow be established if the frontier problem was to be solved at all. Security was essential even from the point of view of the civilization of the natives. What could the missionaries or the diplomatic agents or the traders hope to effect without it? To the natives, no doubt, security wore a different aspect: their hearts were 'sore about the land'. As soon as the treaties were tinkered with-if not before-they too began to feel insecure. The treaty changes, the military posts, the drought, the events in the north, unsettled them and finally brought them to the desperate expedient of war.2 The British Government was less directly interested in security so long as peace was preserved, but in the long run peace itself is impossible without security, and when the treaty policy ended in war it had ceased to

please anybody. It was natural, perhaps, that Lord Stanley and his Governors should give it an extended trial, in the hope of limiting Imperial responsibilities in South Africa, but it was in reality bound to fail. Mistakes may have been made: the Government may, as Professor Macmillan suggests, have thought too much in terms of military measures and too little in terms of police. But the reasons for the failure lie deeper. The Government could not in practice disclaim responsibility for keeping order on the frontier: uncivilized tribes could not be expected to maintain order in frontier conditions unaided: and in the long run the only effectual method of maintaining order was to assume control.