SOUTH AFRICAN POLITICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 14191, 13 October 1906, Page 11

SOUTH AFRICAN POLITICS.

I [FnOil A CORRESPONDENT.] THE TRANSVAAL CONSTITUTION.' JOHANNESBURG, August 22. 1 The gist of . the Transvaal Constitui tion has been announced, by Mr Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, and we are now looking forward with eager, anticipation for the details, which, so far as 1 understand, have not yet been fully determined upon by | the Imperial Cabinet. The basis, hqwever, is a Lower House of sixty-nine members, of which thirty-four will he allotted t-S, the -Rand, twenty-nine to the country districts, and six to Pretoria. A Legislative Council of fifteen members will ho, appointed by the Imperial Government, I presume on Lord Selbbrne’s recommendation, for a term of five years, which will be the length ■ of service for the Lower House. After that the Upper House will be elected bn the same principle as obtains in Cape Colony, that is, a number of constituencies will be grouped together. The qualification for the Lower -House is manhood suffrage, with a condition as to six months’,residence before qualifying. There is no provision for the inclusion of .Asiatics, coloured persons or'natives. * Under the Vereeniging Treaty it was stipulated that the question of coloured representation should he left to the decision of the Parliament of the Transvaal when such Parliament might be constituted. Lord Milner says that by this lie meant natives only, but the precise, term used in Dutch means “ coloured,” and this would, include Asiatics, as also the Cape coloured, persons, who are half-caste, having some white blood with an admixture of Kaffir, Hottentot, and in some instances Asiatic blood. The old magisterial districts of the, Transvaal prior to the war will be retained as far as possible, and either Dutch or English can be spoken in Parliament, at the will, of the membersGENERAL SATISFACTION. It is both interesting and significant to note that this Constitution gives satisfaction to all. parties concerned. To me it- seems one of the most admirable compromises that could have been arranged. The Progressive papers were at first inclined to attack it, and.they ended by damning it with faint praise. The representatives of the Het Volk were dissatisfied with several particulars, but on the whole are satisfied, and moderate - men are wholly pleased. The particular concession to the Het Volk is the use of the Dutch or English language'at will in Parliament. Under the Lyttelton constitution, Dutch could ho used only with the assent of the President of the Chamber.’ They are, also pleased with tlie maintenance of the old magisterial districts. This is really a sentimental approval on their part, but it has influence in disarming their antagonism. The two advantages they have gained, the free use of the Dutch language and the maintenance of the old magisterial districts, are of little practical value to them, hut they like these provisions because they appeal to their sentiments. Their direct gains are the adoption of manhood suffrage as a qualification and the exclusion of the military vote. Manhood suffrage will give them a great many votes of those who do not possess qualifications otherwise, and, although the qualification , under the Lyttelton constitution was. a very libera!! one—an earning power of £IOO per annum—it was not sufficient to give votes to many persons. The Progressives gained in having a greater number of seats for the Rand than they had hoped would hare been the case. Both parties objected to the Legislative Council being nominated, the Dutch especially so. The Progressives, while not liking the principle, regard it as some sort of a safeguard that there will be no subversion of the present condition of things, assuming, of course, that, at least, a majority of British people will be nominated to the Council. "Without this Council there might be a danger of the Het Volk getting a majority in the Lower House and upsetting very much of what has been done during the last three yeam. THE COMING ELECTIONS: A FORECAST. It is very difficult to say how the elections will go. The Het Volk will probably secure twenty-seven out of twenty-nine country seats. Barberton may elect a Progressive, or it may elect Mr Loveday, who was the only Britisher in the old Volksraad, when he represented that district for some years. He is not. a persona grata with the Progressive Party, as it never fjeems to realise which side he is on, but if iS puts up a man against him, it is quite likely that a Hot Volk candidate would slip in between the two. The Progressives have some hope of being able to capture Fetch efstroom, where thetr local branch is very strong, and which already has a number of British settlers amongst the formers. Other possible seats for them amongst the country districts, or seats which they will endeavour to have contested, ore Volkerust and Standerton. They will endeavour to got strong local men to contest both, but there is not very much, chance of their securing election. Of the thirty-four seats for the Rand, throe or four may possibly bo captured by Het Volk candidate®. Krugersdorp has a considerable stretch of the rural district attached to it, and should a strong man be put up to oppose Mr Abe Bailey, who will be the

Progressive candidate, the Het Volk candidate may get the seat. One of the suburbs of Johannesburg on the western side, Wedcdorp, holds a very large Dutch population, and here again a Het Volk candidate may get in, whilst two other seats, one on the East and one on the West Band, will afford fair openings for the Het Volk. Thus of the Rand thirty-four seats, only thirty can be regarded as certain for British candidates, be they Progressive, Responsible or Labour., Pretoria will ho fairly equally divided. The Het Volk ought to get two seats there, the Progressives two, and possibly the Labour or the Independents wall get two. It will thus be seen that out of sixty-nine scats, the Het Volk may be sure of securing twenty-seven, and it has a fair chance of securing five more. I. expect the Progressives will bo able to ' secure twentyfive seats, and this will leave seventeen seats doubtful, or else secured by the Responsibles or Labourites. Of the labour men, it does not seem likely that more than two or three will get in, but even that number may be sufficient to turn the scales should they vote with the Het Volk. From what I can learn, the Progressives are very anxious that there should be no splitting of votes, they would be prepared to withdraw their own candidates if the opposing candidates will agree not to support the Het Volk, rather than that there Should be a split, and a Het Volk candidate, or one who has leanings that way, secure the seat. With this object in view, they are endeavouring to qttach to them all who arc likely to assist, regardless of whether they belong to their Association or not. Amongst a very large section of the- British people there exists a feeling of personal antagonism towards the Progressive Party, as it is regarded as being controlled by the capitalists, and that Association has at least realised this, a)hi no longer takes up the dominant attitude it did at its inception. There are many public questions here, such, for instance, as Chinese labour, the gold law r , and one or two others, where a very large proportion of the British people site at one with the Dutch and at variance with what are known as the “Big Houses,” and the Progressives fear that this deeply-rooted suspicion of and aversion to, the mining magnates may end in a number of men _ withDutch leanings getting a majority of British votes.

Although one cannot predict with anything like certainty the actual figures which the elections will disclose, the rough forecast I have given may be taken as fairly correct, and it also may be assumed that these first elections will be conducted on racial lines, although even at this stage a very considerable section on both sides will decline to be led into the racial camps. During the five years for which the members will be elected we may expect to see other parties formed, there being so many interests of vital importance to sections of the community wdie.ro Dutch and British will be opposed to Dutch and British, and hence parties will be formed apart altogether from racial feelings and racial traditions, and as time goes on racial distinctions should die out. In Cape Colony, where the Bond has been so very strong, it was in reality a fight between the country and the towns, and as the country members were chiefly Dutch and the town constituents were chiefly British, it naturally follow'ed that in those districts where there was a preponderance of British votes they threw in their weight with the British party. In the Transvaal it is not so. It is true the country party here is chiefly Dutch, but a large proportion of people on the Rand are not in accord with the extreme British section, whilst a number of the large Dutch landholders have very much in common with the mining magnates, and hence I expeot to see a gradual breaking away from racial lines., • ' AFFAIRS IN THE ORANGE RIVER COLONY.

The Constitution for the. Orange River Colony has not yet been decided upon. The difficulty there is, so far as the British portion of the people are concerned, that in almost every district they would be outnumbered by the Dutch vote, and therefore it seems most likely that the Imperial Cabinet is endeavouring to devise some workable form of proportional representation. A considerable section of what may be called the moderate men in the Orange River Colony have already represented to the Imperial Government that the •time is not yet ripe for the granting of the Constitution. This section, is led by Sir J. G. Fraser, who was president of the Eaad before the war, and contested the Presidency of the Republic with Ex-President Steyn. On Lord Roberts’s entry into Bloemfontein ho went out to meet him, and has since been closely associated with the British Government, and was made one of the non-official members of the Legislative Council, and recently received: knighthood. Probably ho feels, as do also a great number of those who act with him, that their opportunity for taking any active part in political life will be endangered should single-member constituencies be decided upon, as with the Transvaal. SUGGESTED FEDERATION.

I saw in some of the Australian papers that reference was made to a probable union of the Orange River Colony with 'Natal. Here a public feeling in favour of union between the Transvaal and Natal is being actively engineered by a portion of the Press. It is contended that the Transvaal wants a port, always has wanted a port, and always will want one till it gets it. It was a strong feature of the old Boer Government, arid the late President Kruger was very nearly bringing it about when the British stepped in and. .annexed Tcngoland ; Mr Kruger wanted to. make a railway through Swaziland and construct a port on the Tongoland coast, hut the British Government interfered, and his only hope then was to make the host possible arrangements with the Portuguese,- so that Delagoa Bay could bo at his command. Delagoa is by far the best port for the Transvaal, but the weight of influence on the part of the other South African States is very much against it, and possibly it would not get near its present proportion, of Transvaal trade were it not for the fact that the Portuguese Government oould, if it wished, interfere with the recruiting of Kaffirs for the Rand mines. Our present arrangements with all the States, including the Portuguese territory, is the result of an elaborate system of compromises, in which we. as the chief market, endeavour to make the beet arrangements wo

can for ourselves, whilst the other States are constantly endeavouring to get the better of- each other,- and of ns. If the-Transvaal and Natal were united it would secure for the Transvaal the port it wants, whilst it would give Natal, by means of Durban, a great advantage over all its competitors. Those who are strongly advocating the union here just now are- not, I suspect, so much influenced by the commercial advantages of the union as they are by, to them, the political advantages. In the Transvaal, as I have already pointed out, the racial votes are very closely divided, so that it is impossible to say which will gain control. If Natal were joined to us the British section would gain a preponderance, and this it would probably be able to maintain, there being more British votes in the two colonies than Dutch. Another -source of disquietude has arisen, however. The Natal people seem to recognise that, if they are united with the Transvaal, they will become practically absorbed by the Transvaal; but if they unite with the Orange River Colony they will gain very considerably over the Cape Colony in their business connections, and need not have the fear of political extinction. It therefore happens that, amongst Natal politicians, a union, with the old Free State is much more strongly advocated than with the Transvaal, ami I expect to hoar a great deal made of this during the coming Natal elections. There they do not seem to bother so much about the Dutch vote, or, at least, are prepared to agree that their interests are identical ; otherwise it must be obvious to them that the “Unie,” the Dutch political organisation in the Orange, River Colony, will have an important voice in the control of the united colonies. Natal has already interested itself in the Orange River Colony by constructing .a railway extending from Hamsmith to the Central Railway service, and by this means is able to send ■ goods to the northern part of the Free State on better terms than the Cape 'Colony ports, and as the railway service in the Orange River Colony is extended the present advantap;o will be maintained and probably increased. None of these projected political unions may come to anything, hut the fact of their being so freely advocated in various forms, first in'one State and then in another, will all tend to hasten, a general federation of British South Africa. You will notice that if either of the proposed unions is brought about it will act to the detriment of Capo Colonv, so it see-ms most likely that, should the Cape Colony politicians, several of whom are very astute, recognise the danger ahead of them, they will take steps to prevent it by proposing a general federation, and that what we have been anticipating as a possible event of ten years, or perhaps twenty years time, may become a reality in "tire course of the next five or six years.