Was Confederation then a dream?
Froude himself, in a private letter to Molteno, dated April 29th, 1875, wrote, "Lord Carnarvon's earnest desire since he came into office has been if possible to form South Africa into a confederate dominion, with complete internal self-government."* That was the whole object of the Conference, which but for that would never have been proposed.

That, as Froude truly says in his Report, was one of Molteno's reasons for resisting it.

The Cape Premier thought that South Africa was not ripe for Confederation.

If Froude had had more practice in drawing up official documents, he would probably have left out this deprecatory argument, which does not agree with the rest of his case.

He attributes, for instance, to local politicians a dread that the supremacy of Cape Town would be endangered.