ng with nationalities, nothing is more fatal than a dodge.
Wrongs will be forgiven, sufferings and losses will be forgiven or
forgotten, battles will be remembered only as they recall the martial
virtues of the combatants; but anything like chicane, anything like a
trick, will always rankle. The Government are concerned in South
Africa not only to do what is fair, but to do what South Africa will
accept as fair. They are concerned not merely to choose a balance
which will deal evenly between the races, but one which will secure
the acceptance of both races.

* * * * *

We meet unjust charges in good heart. The permanence and security of
British sovereignty in South Africa is not a matter of indifference to
his Majesty's Ministers. Surely no honourable Member believes that we
could wish to cheat the British race in the Transvaal of any numerical
preponderance which may properly belong to them. Equally with our
political opponents we desire to see the maintenance of British
supremacy in South Africa. But we seek to secure it by a different
method. There is a profound difference between the schools of thought
which exist upon South African politics in this House. We think that
British authority in South Africa has got to stand on two legs. You
have laboured for ten years to make it stand on one. We on this side
know that if British dominion is to endure in South Africa it must
endure with the assent of the Dutch, as well as of the British. We
think that the position of the Crown in South Africa, and let me add
the position of Agents and Ministers of the Crown in South Africa,
should be just as much above and remote from racial feuds, as the
position of the Crown in this country is above our Party politics. We
do not seek to pit one race against the other in the hope of profiting
from the quarrel. We hope to build upon the reconciliation and not
upon the rivalry of races. We hope that it may be our fortune so to
dispose of affairs that these two valiant, strong races may dwell
together side by side in peace and amity under the shelter of an equal
flag.

THE TRANSVAAL CONSTITUTION

HOUSE OF COMMONS, _July 31, 1906_

It is my duty this afternoon, on behalf of the Government, to lay
before the Committee the outline and character of the constitutional
settlement which we have in contemplation in regard to the lately
annexed Colonies in South Africa. This is, I suppose, upon the whole