longer consent to entrust a discredited Executive with larger sums of money than could be avoided. However necessary public works might be, he felt and said that the country could not afford the extravagant cost under such inefficient administration. Like Cato's 'Delenda est Carthago,' to all requisitions for expenditure beyond the ordinary purposes of government, he replied, Responsible government first.'

A great struggle now ensued between the Parliament, led by Mr. Molteno, and the Governor, while the Executive Council was evenly divided; the Attorney-General, Mr. Porter, and the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Rawson, both advocating the introduction of responsible government, and both having eloquently supported Mr. Molteno's resolution in favour of its introduction in 1860. The other members of the Executive were averse to it. It is not surprising that, looking to this opposition of views, the Governor replaced the officers who favoured responsible government by others of an opposite tendency. For ten years the great struggle lasted. Mr. Molteno bore the brunt of the battle, and never wavered in his support of popular government.

There was a local opposition to the introduction of responsible government-a conservative element which feared to undertake such a responsibility, while the eastern members opposed it tooth and nail, as they believed that it would lead to the immediate withdrawal of the Imperial troops from the frontier, while at the same time placing the power in the hands of the western members. The cry of the east was, 'Separation before everything.' Mr. Molteno's watchword was Responsible government before everything,' and his aim a united Colony which alone would command the resources required for carrying out the great public works which were necessary, and which would alone be equal to undertaking the defence of its own frontiers. The Governor admitted the difficulties of the position, but he attributed them to the existing form of government which,

1

according to him, allowed too much power to the Parliament. As a solution of the difficulties, he began with the question of east and west, and suggested two local Parliaments, with a joint federal Parliament, but this expedient the Secretary of State vetoed. Precluded from putting forward the direct separation of east from the west, he endeavoured to conciliate the east by various concessions, which resulted in making confusion worse confounded. The first proposal was for alternate Parliaments held successively in the west and the east, but the Parliament refused to hear of it.

In opening the session of 1863 the Governor admitted the serious condition in which the country was placed by the confusion, the embarrassment, and inherent weakness necessarily arising out of the existing form of government. At the same time a despatch was made public, in which he had said to the Duke of Newcastle that the Parliament had gained too great a control over the Executive. This statement annoyed the advocates of responsible government, while the western members were grievously disappointed that no effort to equalise the revenue and expenditure was foreshadowed. They were up in arms at once, hostile motions came fast, and Mr. Molteno moved that, looking to their mismanagement in the past, the Government could not be trusted with the expenditure of public money involved in the projected public works.1

'It was admitted by the apologists of the Government in the Press that these shortcomings had been great and lamentable-no country could have been worse governed than this unfortunate Cape. We are indignant at the extravagant and heedless squandering of public money, and the indifference to the welfare of the Colony exhibited by those to whom the management of our roads and bridges, the building of our gaols and suchlike have been committed, as even the Moltenos and the Watermeyers of the Cape Parliament are.' The journal in which this appeared, though supporting the Government, commented in the following remarks upon Mr. Molteno's action, but his views are misepresented when he is stated to have been a disbeliever in Government; though he certainly was a disbeliever in the existing form of it: 'The member for Beaufort West has always been a disbeliever in Government. He declared "war to the knife" against it on the very first day he took a seat in the House of Assembly, and he has always come in armour ever since, ready to do battle

The financial troubles of the Government had commenced in 1859. In each successive session up to 1861 Parliament had seriously urged that the expenditure should be brought within the revenue, but the Government as steadily resisted. In that year Mr. Southey, the Colonial Secretary, announced that the treasury was empty, and that a number of unauthorised loans had been incurred to meet the excessive expenditure which there was no means of paying, and said that the responsibility of suggesting means for meeting the deficit devolved upon the House.

Mr. Molteno's motion not to entrust the Government with further public moneys was lost, but Dr. White moved that the financial difficulties of the Government were due to mismanagement and wasteful expenditure of public money by the Colonial Engineers Department and by the Roads Department under the Colonial Engineer. Mr. Watermeyer said it was no use censuring a department: it was the system of government which was at fault. This latter motion was supported by Mr. Molteno, and eventually carried by seventeen to ten.

The House was getting entirely out of hand when the Colonial Secretary introduced the Land Tax Bill. It was

whenever the opportunity offered, and, if none offered, to make it. A most uncompromising foe is he. He is the "Tipton Slasher" of the Cape Parliament; and when the political" Fistiana" of the Colony shall be written, the history of his fights will be the most remarkable and readable portion of it. He has more than once taken three members of the Executive, "one down, and the other come on," and then polished off a Governor into the bargain. On great occasions he will take all the Government at the same time; and if heads of departments permit themselves to be dragged in, he knocks them over the ropes with the greatest ease and indifference.

'Most Government people begin to regard him as an “awkward customer," and, as far as we are ourselves concerned, although not quite approving of his style of fighting, we rather delight in seeing him square up. He frequently gives Government an ugly punch or two in the right direction, which does them good, and has himself, on recent occasions, been winded in return, but never sufficiently so to prevent his coming to the scratch again. He and the Government are natural enemies, and are so regarded by all who take an interest in the parliamentary proceedings, of which the "setting-to" we mention is considered the most interesting and essential part.'

suggested that it should be 'read in full' and instantly Mr. Silverbauer, rejected. The members were furious.

the member for Caledon, said it was an anomaly that the Executive officers should sit in the House as they had not been elected; that it was a farce to go on with the Bill, as they knew it would never pass, and that it would only raise a dangerous agitation if it were put before the country. By the forbearance of members, the Bill was allowed to go on to the usual formality for a second reading, but was rejected without a division.

With regard to extending the Road Act, Mr. Solomon said it was absurd that they should be asked to wait until some system of federation had been brought about before remedying the admitted defects of the system, for he did not believe that any system of federation could be brought about within a short time; and the House took this view Both Mr. Molteno and and refused to extend the Act. Mr. Solomon voted against this action, holding that some machinery was better than none, and that its effect would be merely to destroy without putting anything in its place; they were far too conservative in nature to enforce their views to the extremity of paralysing the Government of the day; they merely did their best to minimise the evils under which the country suffered from the form of government, and in no other sense could they be called obstructionists.

The Governor replied to Dr. White's motion, which had been transmitted to him by address, that he could not be personally to blame, as he had not initiated any enterprises involving fresh expenditure; and further that it was a misnomer to talk of the Government-there was only a Governor. He thought that the initiation of measures on the part of the Governor alone was not in accord with the Constitution Ordinance, and he had made a point of consulting the Executive Council on almost every occasion; he said he had authorised no new works, and was endeavouring to eco

nomise by every means in his power. Mr. Molteno expressed great surprise that the Governor should have construed the resolution of Parliament in a personal sense. It was the office not the person, and the House was not in a position. to immediately criticise the Act of the Government because they might find out only after a considerable lapse of time that matter for censure existed.

Mr. Molteno now moved, That in the opinion of this House the time has arrived when the introduction of the principle known as responsible government or parliamentary government into the administration of this Colony is both expedient and desirable.' And he seized the occasion to review the history of the movement. In 1855 a resolution was carried for a committee to consider what changes in the constitution were needed to introduce responsible government. Having had one session of Parliament, it was considered that the experience was sufficient to warrant the recommendation of this change. In 1856 a resolution adverse to it was carried, as it was thought the present representative institutions had not been given a fair trial.

In 1860 he himself had moved that the tenure of office of the Executive Council was not satisfactory, and should be subject to their responsibility to the House, while its members should be capable of being elected members of the House. This had been proposed in the Parliament which was in its last session in 1860, and it was not carried, as the people had not given their voice on the question. He said that he proposed this resolution now in the same Parliament because further experience had been gained which went to prove that the present system was unworkable :-

SIR,-I have come to the conclusion, not now, but long ago—and I am glad to find that I am supported in the opinion by the evidence of men in whom I think the Colony has a right to place a considerable amount of confidence, of men who could have no possible object in taking one view or the other, except to promote the best interests of the country-I have come to the VOL. I.

G