of the Orange River Colony?  There is only one ground which we could assign for such a refusal, and that is that in the Orange River Colony there is sure to be a Dutch majority.  I cannot conceive any more fatal assertion that could be made on the part of the Imperial Government than that on this specific racial ground they were forced to refuse liberties which otherwise they would concede.  I say such a refusal would be an insult to the hundreds and thousands of loyal Dutch subjects the King has in all parts of South Africa, I say that this invidious treatment of the Orange River Colony would be the greatest blunder, a fitting pendant to all that long concatenation of fatal mistakes which has marked our policy in South Africa for so many years; and I say it would be a breach of the spirit of the terms of peace, because we could not say, “We promised you self-government by the terms of peace, but what we meant by that was that before you were to have self-government, enough persons of British origin should have arrived in the country to make quite sure you would be out-voted.”

If we were to adopt such a course we should be false to that agreement, which is the great foundation of our policy in South Africa.  I hope the House will earnestly sustain the importance of that Vereeniging agreement.  For the first time in many years the two white races dwelling together in South Africa have found a common foundation on which they can both build, a foundation much better than Boomplaats, or the Sand River Convention, or the Conventions of 1880 and 1884, far better than Majuba Hill or the Jameson Raid.  They have found a foundation which they can both look to without any feeling of shame—­on the contrary, with feelings of equal honour, and I trust also with feelings of mutual forgiveness.

On those grounds, therefore, we have decided to give to the Orange River Colony full responsible government.  We eschew altogether the idea of treating them differently from the Transvaal, or interposing any state of limited self-government between them and the full enjoyment of their right.  There is to be a Legislature which will consist of two Chambers, as in the Transvaal.  The First Chamber will be elected upon a voters’ basis and by manhood suffrage.  The residential qualification will be the same as in the Transvaal, six months.  The distribution of seats has been settled by general consent.  The Committee which we sent to South Africa, and which was so very successful in arriving at an adjustment between the parties in the Transvaal, has made similar investigations in the Orange River Colony, and I think we may accept with confidence their recommendation.  They recommend that the number of members should be thirty-eight.  The old Volksraad had sixty members, but it was found to be much too large for the needs of the country, and on several occasions efforts were made to reduce the representation.  Those efforts were not successful, from the fact, which we can all appreciate, that it