§ MR. A. MILLSasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, as to the Supplementary Estimate of £100,000 in aid of Expenditure in the Transvaal Territory, Whether any communication has reached the Colonial Office warranting the expectation held out by the Treasury of repayment of that amount from Local Revenue?
§ MR. J. LOWTHERIt has been, as yet, impossible to obtain full details of the revenue of the Transvaal, but there can be no doubt that its natural capabilities and climate render its prospects extremely promising. The experience, moreover, of other Settlements—few of which are so favourably circumstanced—fully justifies the confident expectation that the re-payment of £100,000 will be easily accomplished in the course of a few years. If, however, this were not so, the expenditure of such a sum 1171 would, I need hardly remind my hon. Friend, be a mere trifle, as compared with the cost and calamity of a Caffre war. I may, perhaps, be allowed to take this opportunity of correcting a misapprehension which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W.E. Forster) appears to be under with reference to some observations of mine in the debate on the second reading of the South Africa Bill, and upon which he founded a Question addressed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Tuesday last. What I said was, that subsequent to a statement made by my noble Friend the Secretary of State in "another place" fuller information had been received from Sir Theophilus Shepstone. The despatch to which I referred was already upon the Table, and will be found at page 152 of the Blue Book, and is numbered 122. This despatch was received on May 26, while Lord Carnarvon's statement was made on May 7.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERI understood the hon. Gentleman to allude to a despatch received at a later date.