Besides, the whole of the vast continent of Africa is behind them, and no one knows how many or how numerous might at any moment be the descent of savages across the frontier. If the troops be taken away the colonists will be very defenceless indeed, and therefore we do not wonder that they should have taken alarm, and convened public meetings. The Cape is the great half-way house to India, and if deserted by us may at any moment fall into hostile hands, a matter of some consideration for our commerce, and, in case of war, for our political interests, for then we should to adead certain by he de prived of the overland route to India. For these reasons, and taking for granted that the removal of troops from the Cape is a matter of policy, and not of necessity, we hope that the ques tion will be reconsidered, and that our fellow-iubjects in South Afr.oa will not be wholly without protection against the jealousy of the Boers, and the open enmity of the Kaffirs. We could name a dozen foreign stations from which our troops might be withdrawn with more advan tage to themselves and less injury to national interests than the Cape, places which are nothing but hospitals and graves for our soldiers, and from which the country reaps no commensurate advan tage But we fear that this withdrawal of troops from foreign stations is no question of State policy, put rather * symptom of the growing weakness of our military resources. We may attribute it to other causes, but the fact is that we have not soldiers enough for these foreign demands, and, instead of endeavouring to increase the supply, we leave one colony after another without protection. It might easily be arranged otherwise with a little more generosity in our Parliament, and a little more courage in apealing to that generosity on the part of our Military Administration. The supply of men for the army is merely a question of expense, and the alternative should be fairly put to the House of Commons, whether it will gradually give up all Imperial control oyer our colonies, or provide for their proper garrison by a liberal increase in the annual vote for the army. The House of Commons must remember that it is not merely a question of leaving the colonists to their own i. 