l 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