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. London, 1897-1905. By G. McC. Theal. 36 vols. 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 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. At its establishment in 1652 the Cape settlement, consisting entirely of servants of the Netherlands East India Company, Rise of the 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 for the redress of grievances, later of demands for a share in the government, and finally ended in the establishment of independent republics in the interior of the Colony. The power against which this movement was directed was concentrated in the hands of a few officials. Subject to the Governor's directorate of the Company, which had received powers. its first Charter in 1602, there was about the year 1790 at the head of the Cape Colony a Governor with very extensive powers. He could convene the courts of justice, approve all judgments, call up the militia for active service, and direct the activities of all persons who exercised minor executive and administrative functions throughout the country. Yet this last statement should be qualified, for there was associated with the Governor a Council which shared the task of making laws and seeing to it that these were carried The Council. into effect. The available records leave a considerable degree of doubt as to the question in how far the Governor was bound to act in accordance with the opinions of the majority of his Council. On one occasion at least instructions had been issued from Holland permitting the Governor to set aside the decision of a majority if he deemed such a step necessary; and as a general rule it was the Governor who was ultimately responsible to the managing body of the Company, though on a few notable occasions other officials were also called to account for acts done by the government. Yet it is not certain whether later governors were to be considered as bound by all instructions issued to their predecessors. It is even doubtful whether such later governors were always aware of the existence of instructions issued in earlier years. The directors in the Netherlands were often more concerned about their trade and the safety of their cargoes than about minute and definite points of law. They were traders first and legislators afterwards. This, however, may be stated with certainty, that the governors did act in opposition to the decisions of their Council and that such action was upheld by the directors. Yet this did not happen frequently, for when the Governor was a strong man he carried his Council with him, while a weak ruler generally adopted the views of his advisers. That there were not likely to be any grave differences between Governor and Council will be realised when it is stated that all the councillors were officials of the Company, whose cause they were always apt to espouse rather than that of the colonists whenever the interests of rulers and ruled came into conflict; for though no special emoluments were attached to the office of councillor, it was always filled, at the wish of the directorate, by salaried servants appointed by that body and liable to dismissal by it. As a rule the high officials sitting in the Council of Government were seven or eight in number. They were generally men of fairly advanced age who had climbed step by step every rung in the ladder of advancement, and consequently were well acquainted with the policy and methods of their employers. Naturally they seldom showed any inclination to view matters sympathetically from the burghers' standpoint, especially when commercial privileges were asked for. This had the effect of causing the inhabitants to make demands for representation in the highest governing body, but they were met by the directors with a flat refusal. The desire for representation had grown out of concrete needs, the absence of trading rights which the Company reserved to itself, and grievances arising from the dependence of the Supreme Court of Justice on the Government, and the power of banishment held and exercised by the Governor. Can any explanation be found of the fact that the successive generations of colonists who remembered and handed down the experiences of their ancestors were so slow in their advance? Apart from the universally experienced difficulty of upsetting or even materially modifying an established order of things, however bad and undesirable, the Cape colonists laboured under the additional disadvantages of being too widely scattered to be able to co-operate, of being totally debarred from the advantages of a public press, of being very badly educated in history and politics, of being in their ordinary walks of life very easygoing and somewhat inclined to become indolent, and of having the ever-present danger of attacks by the natives to provide against. But the most direct if not the most potent cause of their prolonged quietness was to be found in the popularity of their lesser boards. Boards. By 1795 the Colony had been divided into four districts: Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Swellendam, and Graaff Reinet. The District president of each of the district boards was appointed by Government and his salary was paid out of the public treasury. He received his instructions from the Governor and Council and was removable by them at pleasure. He was, as the civil commissioner is to-day, the representative of the central Government in his district. He bore the title of landdrost and had an official residence in the town where his board held its meetings. With him were associated six men, called heemraden. When such a board of landdrost and heemraden was first constituted it was the practice for the Government to appoint all the members, but when subsequent vacancies occurred, and regularly every two years, the board sent to Cape Town, the seat of Government, a double list of names from which the Council selected the necessary number |