more than two years have passed since the representations were made to
the right hon. gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square,
which induced him to confer a measure of self-government on the
Transvaal. Those representations laid stress on the fact that the
desire for self-government was not put forward only by the Boers, but
that both sections of the community in the Transvaal desired to take
the control of affairs into their own hands. The right hon. gentleman
published a Constitution. That Constitution conferred very great and
wide powers. It conferred upon an overwhelming elected majority the
absolute power of the purse and control over legislation. But it has
always been my submission to the House that that Constitution had about
it no element of permanence, that it could not possibly have been
maintained as an enduring, or even a workable settlement; and I am
bound to say--I do not wish to be controversial this afternoon if I can
avoid it--that, when I read the statement that this representative
government stage would have been a convenient educative stage in the
transition to full self-government, the whole experience of British
colonial policy does not justify such an assumption. The system of
representative government without responsible Ministers, without
responsible powers, has led to endless friction and inconvenience
wherever and whenever it has been employed. It has failed in Canada, it
has failed in Natal and Cape Colony. It has been condemned by almost
every high colonial authority who has studied this question. I do not
think I need quote any more conclusive authority upon that subject than
that of Lord Durham. Lord Durham, in his celebrated Report, says of
this particular system:

"It is difficult to understand how any English statesmen could have
imagined that representative and irresponsible government could be
successfully combined. There seems, indeed, to be an idea that the