FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Mr. Lyttelton had meanwhile been elected for that Constituency.

THE ORANGE FREE STATE CONSTITUTION

House of Commons, December 17, 1906

Letters Patent have been issued during the last week conferring a Constitution upon the Transvaal Colony.  These instruments have now been for some days at the disposal of the House, and this afternoon affords an occasion for their discussion.  Other Letters Patent conferring a Constitution upon the Orange River Colony are in an advanced state of preparation, and I think it would be generally convenient if I were to make a statement as to the character and scope of that Constitution.  With that view I have, by the direction of the Prime Minister, placed upon the Paper a Resolution which I now move, permitting a general discussion upon the constitutional arrangements which we are making both in the Transvaal and in the Orange River Colony.  Now, Sir, by the Treaty of Vereeniging, Great Britain promised full self-government to the peoples of the two Boer Republics which had been conquered and annexed as the result of the war.  This intention of giving responsible government did not arise out of the terms of peace, although it is, of course, solemnly expressed in them.  It has always been the settled and successful colonial policy of this country during the last fifty years to allow great liberties of self-government to distant communities under the Crown, and no responsible statesman, and no British Cabinet, so far as I know, ever contemplated any other solution of the South African problem but that of full self-government.  The idea which I have seen put forward in some quarters, that, in order to get full satisfaction for the expense and the exertions to which we were put in the war, we are bound to continue governing those peoples according to our pleasure and against their will, and that that is, as it were, an agreeable exercise which is to be some compensation for our labours, is an idea which no doubt finds expression in the columns of certain newspapers, but to which I do not think any serious person ever gave any countenance.  No, Sir, the ultimate object, namely, the bestowal of full self-government, was not lost sight of even in the height of the war; and as all parties were agreed that some interval for reconstruction must necessarily intervene, the only questions at issue between us have been questions of manner and questions of time.

How much difference is there between Parties in this House as to time?  It is now more than three years since Lord Milner, speaking in the Inter-colonial Council, bore emphatic testimony to the faithfulness with which the Boers—­those who had been fighting against us—­had observed their side of the terms of peace.  Lord Milner said: