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SOME ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED.

1. C. of G. Hope Statutes: STATUTES OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 1652-1895. Edited by Hercules Tenant and Edgar Michael Jackson. Cape Town, 1895.

2. Laws of the O.R.C. STATUTE Law of the Orange River COLONY. Edited by P. L. Lefebvre and Bedver B. L. Jackson. Bloemfontein, 1907.

3. Locale Wetten der Z.A. Rep.: LOCALE WETTEN EN VOLKSRAADSBESLUITEN DER ZUID-AFRIKAANSCHE REPUBLIEK, 1849-98. By various compilers. Pretoria, 1887-99.

4. Ords. of Natal: ORDINANCES, PROCLAMATIONS, ETC., RELATING TO NATAL, 1836-55. By W. J. D. Moodie. Natal, 1856.

5. O.V.S. Wetboek: WETBOEK VAN DEN ORANJEVRIJSTAAT, 1854-91. Uitgegeven op gezag van den HEd. Volksraad. Bloemfontein, 1892.

6. Procls., etc.:

PROCLAMATIONS, ADVERTISEMENTS,

AND OTHER

OFFICIAL NOTICES, PUBLISHED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE FROM 10TH JANUARY 1806 TO 2ND MAY 1825. Cape of Good Hope, 1827.

"

7. P.R.O., C.O.: Public Record Office, London; Colonial Office Department. The papers for each Colony are divided into sections like Original Correspondence," "Ordinances," "Government Gazettes," etc., and the volumes in each section are numbered. Thus 50/4 is the fourth volume of the Cape section, "Ordinances."

8. Rec. : RECORDS OF THE CAPE COLONY, 1793-1827. 36 vols. London, 1897-1905. By G. McC. Theal.

9. Statute Law of the Transvaal: STATUTE LAW OF THE TRANSVAAL, 1839-1910. Compiled and edited by Carl Jeppe and J. H. Gey Van Pittius. Pretoria, 1910.

10. Statutes of Natal: STATUTES OF NATAL, 1845-99. Compiled and edited by R. L. Hitchins and revised by G. W. Sweeney. Pietermaritzburg, 1900.

II. Verz. van Besl. v. d. O.V.S.: VERZAMELING VAN BESLUITEN
VAN DEN HED. VOLKSRAAD VAN DEN OranjEVRIJSTAAT (1854-66).
Gedrukt op Last van den Hoog Edelen Volksraad. Bloemfontein
(1867 ?).

INTRODUCTION.

SECTION I.

THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE UNDER THE DUTCH,

1652-1795.

BRITAIN'S task in South Africa has probably been more difficult than in any other part of her extensive and widely scattered dominions. While her statesmen have had to cope with native problems in India and to a lesser extent in Australasia; while they have been faced in Canada by the delicate matter of governing an off-shoot of another highly civilised and intelligent nation; while in the West Indies there was the task of eradicating slavery and adjusting governmental institutions to the peculiar needs and weaknesses of a mixed population of Europeans and natives-she found in the southern corner of Africa all these elements combined. There were the Hottentots, who had been gradually taught to lead a settled life and engage in remunerative work; the Bushmen, still untamed and, as the event proved, for ever, untamable by any of the artifices on which the white man prides himself; and the Kaffir, who in his southward and westward march had begun to touch the vanguard of the colonists as they moved towards the rising sun. Most serious of all, there was the white population, with its own ideas and traditions, its own ambitions and its own peculiar characteristics, formed and hardened by close on a century and a half of contact with the soil. The relation of the white men towards their slaves and the various native or non-European races would be a fruitful source of difficulty. To the formation of their national character various factors had contributed. If one would estimate and account for the value or success of the Constitution introduced in the nineteenth century it will be necessary to know beforehand not only the governmental arrangements that existed in 1795 when the Cape of Good Hope surrendered to the arms of George III., but also to understand something of the attitude towards the State of the people subdued.

b

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE TOWARDS THE END OF the Rule of THE NETHERLANDS EAST INDIA COMPANY.

Rise of the

At its establishment in 1652 the Cape settlement, consisting entirely of servants of the Netherlands East India Company, was managed exclusively by officials who followed burgher the methods and the procedure that were univerclass. sally adopted by the officers on board a fleet or vessel sailing between Holland and the East. While they acted both as a governing and a judicial body their proceedings were marked by promptitude and finality. The original intention was to have a half-way house to the East, where diseased persons could recuperate and fresh supplies be obtained, and it soon became obvious that this object could be best attained if the agriculturists were given land and cattle to farm on their own account. Thus there arose a class of men distinct from the employees of the Company. They were called free-men or burghers. Receiving land in 1657, some leagues from the immediate vicinity of the Fort in Table Valley, they shifted into the interior, becoming the outposts of Western civilisation and Christianity, and making from its southern extremity the first definite and fruitful move towards the reclaiming of the Dark Continent, a move the end of which is not yet in sight.

Divergent

Very soon it became obvious that the interests of burghers and employees were by no means identical, and as a recognition of this fact the colonists were given representatives interests of first in the courts of justice and later in other burghers and bodies as they were created. This privilege was employees. granted the burghers by the rulers on their own initiative, for, as far as is known for certain, there were as yet no definite and clearly formulated demands on the part of the people for a share in the government.

Growth of

This is not the place for describing with any minuteness the evolution of a political consciousness of the Cape burghers, but it must be remarked that the process compolitical menced before the end of the seventeenth century consciousness. and continued throughout the eighteenth with ever-increasing force and continuity. As a rising reef of rock near the seashore first shows above the surf a few isolated peaks at considerable distances apart, which then become closer and closer together till the entire chain emerges and finally, perhaps, grows to a mountain range filling the whole countryside, so there were from the earliest years of the eighteenth century apparently unconnected risings among the burghers, which at first merely took the form of prayers

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