responsible powers, has led to endless friction and inconvenience wherever and whenever it has been employed.  It has failed in Canada, it has failed in Natal and Cape Colony.  It has been condemned by almost every high colonial authority who has studied this question.  I do not think I need quote any more conclusive authority upon that subject than that of Lord Durham.  Lord Durham, in his celebrated Report, says of this particular system: 

“It is difficult to understand how any English statesmen could have imagined that representative and irresponsible government could be successfully combined.  There seems, indeed, to be an idea that the character of representative institutions ought to be thus modified in Colonies; that it is an incident of colonial dependence that the officers of government should be nominated by the Crown without any reference to the wishes of the community whose interests are entrusted to their keeping.  It has never been very clearly explained what are the Imperial interests which require this complete nullification of representative government.  But if there is such a necessity it is quite clear that a representative Government in a Colony must be a mockery and a source of confusion, for those who support this system have never yet been able to devise or exhibit in the practical working of colonial government any means for making so complete an abrogation of political influence palatable to the representative body.”

I contend that the right hon. gentleman’s Constitution would have broken down in its first session, and that we should have then been forced to concede grudgingly and in a hurry the full measure of responsible government which, with all due formality, and without any precipitancy, the Letters Patent issued last week have now conferred.  But even the right hon. gentleman himself did not intend his Constitution to be a permanent settlement.  He intended it to be a transition, and a brief transition; and in the correspondence which passed on this subject two or three years is sometimes named as the period for which such a Constitution might conveniently have endured—­two or three years, of which, let me point out to the House, nearly two years have already gone.  Seeing how little difference there is between us upon that question, I dispense with further argument as to the grant of a Transvaal Constitution, as I see the course we have adopted does commend itself to the good sense of all Parties in this country and is sustained at almost every point by almost every person conversant with South African affairs.

It is said, however, we have heard it often said, “It may be wise to grant responsible government to the Transvaal, but it is not wise to give it to the Orange River Colony.  Why should you give it to the Orange River Colony too?” I say, “Why not?” Let us make it quite clear that the burden of proof always rests with those who deny or restrict the issue of full Parliamentary liberties.  They