h its priceless literary treasures and its world-wide business
connections, as not to believe that it can safely be exposed to the
open competition of a dialect like the _taal_. We believe that the
only sure way to preserve in the years that are to come such a
language as the _taal_ would be to make it a proscribed language,
which would be spoken by the people with deliberation and with malice,
as a protest against what they regarded, and would rightly regard, as
an act of intolerance. Therefore we have decided to follow the Cape
practice and allow the members of the Transvaal Parliament to address
that Assembly indifferently in Dutch or English.

I shall be asked what will be the result of the arrangement that we
have made. I decline to speculate or prophesy on that point. It would
be indecent and improper. I cannot even tell in this country at the
next election how large the Liberal majority will be. Still less would
I recommend hon. gentlemen here to forecast the results of contests in
which they will not be candidates. I cannot tell how the British in
the Transvaal will vote. There are a great many new questions, social
and economic, which are beginning to apply a salutary counter-irritant
to old racial sores. The division between the two races, thank God, is
not quite so clear-cut as it used to be. But this I know--that as
there are undoubtedly more British voters in the Transvaal than there
are Dutch, and as these British voters have not at any point in the
Constitutional Settlement been treated unfairly, it will be easily
within their power to obtain a British majority, if they all combine
to obtain it. I nourish the hope that the Government that will be
called into life by these elections will be a coalition Government
with some moderate leader acceptable to both parties, and a Government
which embraces in its Party members of both races. Such a solution
would be a godsend to South Africa. But whatever may be the outcome,
his Majesty's Government are confident that the Ministers who may be
summoned, from whatever Party they may be drawn, to whatever race they
may belong, will in no circumstances fail in their duty to the Crown.

I should like to say also that this Parliament will be of a high
representative authority, and it will be the duty of whoever may be
called upon to represent Colonial business in this House to stand
between that Parliament and all unjustifiable interference from
whatever quarters of the