the Colony was always on a precarious footing. In the country districts the local boards had instructions to assist in the matter, but the task really devolved on the ministers of religion at the various centres and their kerkraden or presbyteries. Where any schools existed at all they were either private undertakings or were supported by charity. At Cape Town, however, there was a Board of Directors of Public Schools consisting of a member of the Council of Government, three clergymen, and two elders, who superintended the public schools of the town and held inspections when they were minded to do so. Funds were raised by subscription and the various congregations assisted the work by contributing, but the Government very seldom made direct grants for educational purposes. It did, however, assist to pay the ministers who were employees of the Company.

There assembled at Cape Town another Council which did service for the whole country, but it is difficult to classify this The Burgher body, for it fulfilled no duties of a legislative or an

Council. executive or a judicial nature, though indirectly it pertained of the nature of each of these functions. It may be called an advisory body. From before the close of the seventeenth century, two or three burgher representatives sitting in the Court of Justice had repeatedly been consulted by the Government on various matters affecting the colonists as a class and their suggestions had generally been adopted. This custom had become crystallised and extended. From being a party whose advice could be asked when it was needed the burgher judges had proceeded to submit burghers' petitions to the Governor and Council and presently they began to claim it as a right that they should speak for the whole body of burghers and that they should be heard. They had continued to be for so many years the channel for transmitting the grievances of the inhabitants that when at a later date the officials attempted to dispute the claim they had to submit to established custom. During the eighteenth century the burgher judges had begun to meet in private session and they were then regarded as constituting a separate board known as the Burgher Council. In 1793 the usage was formally recognised as the law of the land, when it was ordered that if the councillors wished to make representations to the Governor one or two of them could do so verbally in the first instance. If this did not produce the desired effect, they could address themselves in writing to the Government, who were commanded to supply them with an extract of the proceedings respecting the matter. If the members were not yet satisfied they could communicate the circumstances to the directors in Holland. They were to deliver such a communication to the

Governor in a sealed packet, at the same time informing him of the subjects to which it referred. He was bound to transmit it to the directors with other public papers at the first opportunity. Thus there was no risk of the burghers' complaints being squashed by the governing body without redress and before they could be laid before the supreme authorities in the Netherlands. By 1795 the Burgher Council consisted of the six burgher judges who sat in the Court of Justice.

The revenue was hopelessly inadequate to meet the expenditure incurred by the Company. The taxes were always remarkably low. This may be accounted for Expense and troublesome partly by the fact that the colonists were rather ness of the poor in convertible wealth and partly because in settlement. the matter of levying dues the Government consistently followed the advice and deferred to the objections of the burgher councillors. They were affording a temporary respite to the people, but unfortunately people must reap what their fathers have sown, and the unwillingness of the Dutch section of South Africa's white population to tax themselves to-day is very likely due to the effective representation of their ancestors' wishes before the Government in earlier times. The Cape was of great value to the Netherlands Company, but more for its importance as a strategic base and a port of call than for any direct profits which it yielded. a settlement taken by itself it was a most unprofitable financial venture, and a continual drain on the Company's funds. It was, moreover, a very troublesome Colony, inasmuch as it had at an early date broken away from the ordinary rut of factories and out-stations owing to the presence of a large body of free settlers, who devoted themselves to pastoral and agricultural pursuits rather than to trade and barter.

After the middle of the eighteenth century the people made demands for governmental reform which became more Difficulties of and more far-reaching and insistent. The great

the colonists. bulk of the affairs in which the colonists were concerned was already being managed in the local courts and boards by men of their own class, selected from their midst and in sympathy with their wishes and requirements. It is possible, therefore, that they would have remained content for many years more with the established order of things, but there were mainly two circumstances which caused them to move. The Netherlands Company was a body trading for profit and it reserved to itself an almost exclusive right of trade at the Cape. This was a very old grievance with the inhabitants. The other source of trouble arose from the fact that during the last quarter of the eighteenth century the eastern border of the Colony began to be threatened by power

ful and hard-fighting Kaffir tribes. In earlier years conflicts with the Hottentots, Bushmen, and bands of escaped slaves could be concluded successfully by a commando called together in a district or a ward without the Government's interference. But the Kaffirs were a new factor and far more difficult to dispose of. Yet it was just at that time that the Company was passing through its final period of decline. It did not afford its subjects the protection of which they stood in need.

During the last quarter of the century, too, the people were inspired first by the teachings of the American War of InAttempts to dependence and then by the French Revolution, win reforms. and they began to think and talk about the constitution, about fundamental laws, and about the rights of man. Their difficulties were discussed in the light of their experience during previous years when they had found it impossible to obtain any guarantee for the permanent redress of their grievances. Arriving in Amsterdam, their delegates pleaded with the directors of the Company and with the States General for constitutional liberties. Some years were spent in discussion and negotiation. The Company was hastening to its fall, and the States General, realising that any weakening of the authority and prestige of the Company, which was a huge national concern in whose welfare the whole of the people was directly concerned, would be fatal at that time when the political situation in Europe was in a very disturbed state, were unwilling to coerce the directors. Commissioners were sent to the Cape, however, to try to allay the unrest, but the improvements which they brought about did not meet the chief needs of the burghers. Failing to obtain compliance with their demands, which included equal representation with the employees of the Company in the Council of Government and a considerable curtailment of the powers of the fiscal, the people rose in revolt. At Graaff Reinet and Swellendam the landdrosts were expelled and miniature republics set up in 1795 The Government was unable to reassert its authority. Stellenbosch was on the point of rising and Cape Town was expected to follow the example of the other centres. But meanwhile war had broken out between France and Great Britain, and the Netherlands had attached itself to the French and expelled its stadtholder, the Prince of Orange. Having fled to England, he sent with an English expedition intended to capture the Cape an order 1 instructing the Government to admit the British forces into the Colony. After some fighting Cape Town capitulated 2 and the South African republic was strangled at its birth.

1 Document No. 2.

2 No. 3.

SECTION II.

THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE UNDER THE BRITISH
CROWN, 1795–1910.

Taking as a basis of division the three forms of colonial management, Crown Colony Government, Representative Government, and Responsible Government, the constitutional history of the Cape Colony falls naturally into the following periods: (1) 1795-1854. (2) 1854-1872. (3) 1872-1910.

§ 1. THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE, 1795-1854.

Up to the year 1824 the central government had no history worth recording, except during the period 1803 to 1806 when, The Governor under the Batavian Republic which received the an absolute country by the Treaty of Amiens, the Governor was ruler till 1825. assisted by a Council of four, of whom at least one had to be colonial born and no one could be a government official. In 1806 when the country was conquered a second time it reverted to the position that existed from 1795 till 1803. Every public act done derived its validity from the sole and undivided and unadvised authority of the Governor. He directed by proclamation, instructions, and commissions literally every matter, from the manner of drawing water on the Cape Town square to the quelling of rebellions on the eastern frontier. All the powers of government, as well civil as military, were vested in him by instructions issued in 1796 to the first civil Governor,1 and he had the sole legislative power in the country, giving his own reading of the old laws, modifying them at pleasure, and enacting new ones. He increased the amount of old taxes and levied fresh imposts. He regulated the tenure of land by fixing or reducing the amount of perpetual quit-rent. The governors exercised a general control of the administration of justice, and with one or more assistants, whose opinions had no binding effect on any decision, the successive governors sat as courts of appeal to try civil and criminal cases of a serious nature. 2 The Governor appointed nearly all the officials except the very highest, and he could remove any one of them except the Lieutenant-Governor and the Secretary. He took away the power of initiating measures and enterprises from the local boards and made them the instruments of his own will, while the policy was adopted of appointing to the post of landdrost in the various centres military officers who had retired on half2 Nos. 65 and 66.

1 No. 7.

pay, and who were but very slightly acquainted with the language and customs of the people or with the laws which they had to administer. In many notable instances these extensive powers were employed to the distinct advantage of good government. Arrears of oppressive taxes were remitted, torture as a means of eliciting evidence or punishing crime was abolished on a Governor's recommendation, judges were sent on circuit to try cases in all the districts,1 judicial proceedings were ordered to be held in public, and criminal jurisdiction was granted to the district courts, thus obviating the tedious necessity of referring trivial cases to Cape Town. It is a curious fact that all these measures, which probably no one will regard otherwise than as eminently wise and statesmanlike, were adopted while the Governor was the supreme and sole ruler, whereas subsequent legislation which was most seriously complained of as short-sighted and oppressive was passed by Councils which were established in 1825, and later with the object of assisting the Governor and limiting his power.

settlers, and

A despotism is not necessarily bad for a country at times it is the only chance of salvation. But certainly the large Attitude of body of British settlers who arrived in the Colony the British in 1820 and subsequent years did not think so. of the Dutch For the rest of the century these men were to have burghers. a bracing effect on the thorough but slow-moving Dutch burghers. As soon as their immediate material needs were satisfied they commenced to agitate for a share in the government, for the freedom of the press, and for the right to hold public meetings. The second of these privileges they soon gained-for the others they had to wait more than twenty years. Being for the greater part men of intelligence and sterling merit, and having influential friends in Great Britain to plead their cause in Parliament and before the country, they were hopeful that a speedy change in the form of government would be effected; but the imperial authorities knew that it would take some time before they could establish a firm hold on the old inhabitants, and therefore while engaged in establishing the English language, English law, and British institutions they realised that it was necessary to have in the Colony a government wholly responsible to themselves. The Dutch inhabitants asked for elective district government on more than one occasion. The essential characteristics of their class were a strong localism and a marked individualism developed on the veld in semi-independent districts. They did not yet realise that under British rule their cherished land did not lie along those paths, for they were as yet quite unfamiliar with the British Constitution.

1 No. 67.

2 No. 68.

3 No. 70.