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High Commissioner's Office Johannesburg
Aug:23:1902
My dearest Mother
Many thanks for your letter and to Anna for her last two. I have sent Aunt Aggie a small present which, I hope will be in time for her wedding. I do hope your health is quite restored now. I am glad to hear that you have got servants at last, and I trust you will be very careful not to overwork yourself during the winter. I am delighted to see from the photograph
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Anna sends that the Mhor [his brother, Alastair] is once again the fine caller boy I used to ken, and not the waif creature of Port Elizabeth.
I am just back from a 10 days holiday - though it was chiefly on business. You will read a full account of it in the pages of Blackwood's. I am up to the eyes in arrears of work, but am tremendously well if with a face like a cow-boys'. What a wonderful country this is when one gets away from the stupid towns.
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I hope my poor brother William will warstle through all right. Eben [his uncle] is a very different matter, but I will write him fully soon. You see we find that S. African agriculture is so technical and peculiar that we have been compelled only to employ colonials. A good man from home is quite useless for all work like stock inspection and land valuation. Mr Chamberlain has kept offering to send out first class experts from home, and I have consistently refused the offer. I am afraid the state of things may last for some years, for when a country is in
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the making, one has to be terribly careful not to make mistakes. However I will explain all this to Eben himself.
I have at last got my Crown Lands Disposal Act passed, and the whole department organised. The thing is my own creation from top to bottom & I am quite proud of it. The new Lieutenant-Governor arrives next week, so I think we shall all be able to go a little easier.
You ask me why I am not on the Executive Council. Did you ever hear of a Private Secy who was. I am not an official and I have steadily refused to become one, even though it meant a much increased salary.
With much love to all
your affectionate son
John
