TRANSVAAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7962, 13 February 1906, Page 5

TRANSVAAL.

THE FRANCHISE QUESTION. LEITER FROM THE HON. ALFRED LYTTELTON. Received February 12, 10.7 p.m. LONDON, February 12. The Hon.' Alfred Lyttelton, in a letter to The Times, commenting on the reports that the Government are meditating the abandonment of one-vote-on,C-value and substituting the system of giving greater weight to the man living i'J the country than to the man living in the town, cannot bring himself to believe that the Cabinet, containing good men and true patriots, can in the initial plenitude of power and aqthority lend tbemselvss to so weak and disastrous a policy. The late Government adopted a system after many months of free discussion. The Transvaal showed that the general opinion of the community to be that, parties sharply differing on other very material points, were here agreed. There was no petition against the principle presented and no whisper of criticism offered in the House of Commons during the debate on July 9th. On the contrary, Sir Henry Campbell-Baunerman distinctly approved of the electoral basis. More over, it was a fallacy to allege tbat it had been devised to secure the mine-owners'abcend-ancy inasmuch as the number of British workmen on the Rand alone was sufficient to obliterate the min,eowners in the elections. , Continuity of the colonial policy was essential, especially with regard to South Africa, where vacillation was universally despised. A strong stable policy would commaud the respect and the goodwill of all races. The Times says that the proposed population census and new demarcation boundaries would postpone self-go-vernment for five years. Moreover, the Commission had been worsting some time in connection with demarcation on the present basis. It must be remembered that to grant immediate responsible government was a great concession., This Drought the two British parties in the Transvaal into a line, but, also, into a line against the charges of sapping the foundations of the British power.