sure are equally regretted in all parts of the House--spoke on this
question with his customary breadth of view and courage of thought. He
said: "The responsibility for this decision lies with the Government
now in power. They have more knowledge than we have; and if they
consider it safe to give this large grant, and if they turn out to be
right, no one will be better pleased than we. I do not think that,
although important, this change should be described as a change in
colonial policy, but as continuity of colonial policy."

If, then, we are agreed upon the principle, I do not think that
serious or vital differences can arise upon the method. Because, after
all, no one can contend that it is right to extend responsible
government, but not right to extend it fairly. No one can contend that
it is right to grant the forms of free institutions, and yet to
preserve by some device the means of control. And so I should hope
that we may proceed in this debate without any acute divergences
becoming revealed.

I am in a position to-day only to announce the decision to which the
Government have come with respect to the Transvaal. The case of the
Transvaal is urgent. It is the nerve-centre of South Africa. It is the
arena in which all questions of South African politics--social, moral,
racial, and economic--are fought out; and this new country, so lately
reclaimed from the wilderness, with a white population of less than
300,000 souls, already reproduces in perfect miniature all those dark,
tangled, and conflicting problems usually to be found in populous and
old-established European States. The case of the Transvaal differs
fundamentally from the case of the Orange River Colony. The latter
has been in the past, and will be again in the future, a tranquil
agricultural State, pursuing under a wise and tolerant Government a