The Federal tie between the States and the Commonwealth, as defined in the Act of 1900, is looser than that between the Provinces of Canada and the Dominion, and bears more resemblance to the relation between a State and the Federal Government of the United States.  As in that country and in Switzerland, residuary powers rest with the State or Canton Governments, not with the Federal Government.

The South African Union of 1909, comprising the Colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony, had a Federal origin, so to speak, in that the old Colonies agreed to abandon a great part of their autonomies to a central Government and Legislature; but the spirit of unity carried them so far as almost to annul State rights.  The powers now retained by the provincial Legislatures are so small, and the control of the Union Government is so far-reaching, that the whole system is rightly described as a Union, not as a Federation.  The Provinces, which are really little more than municipalities, have no longer any relation except in remotest constitutional theory with the Mother Country, their Administrators are appointed by the Union, and, unlike the Provinces of Canada and the States of Australia, they have not even an internal system of responsible government.[77] No direct appeal lies to the King in Council from the provincial Courts, which are now, in fact, only “divisions” of the Supreme Court of South Africa.  The Provinces, in short, do not possess “Constitutions” at all.  Their powers can be extinguished without their individual assent by an Act of the Union Parliament, whereas the Canadian Dominion has no power to amend either the Dominion or the Provincial Constitutions, and in Australia constitutional amendments must be agreed to by the States separately as well as by the Commonwealth Parliament.  But these revolutionary changes in the status of the old South African Colonies were brought about, let us remember, by the free consent of the inhabitants of South Africa, after prolonged deliberation.

The United States, the Australian Commonwealth, and the Canadian Dominion are, then, the three genuine Federations which the English-speaking races have constructed.  The two last are included in the present British Empire, and they stand side by side with the three unitary Colonies—­South Africa, New Zealand, and Newfoundland.  The constitutional relation of each of these five bodies to the Mother Country is precisely the same, although they differ widely in internal structure, as in wealth and population.  Within each of the two Federations, as we have seen, there exists a nexus of minor Constitutions, State or Provincial, which have virtually no relations with the Mother Country, but are integral parts of the major Federation.

II.

FEDERAL OR COLONIAL HOME RULE?