Parties in that Chamber will be attended by some measure of
impartiality, and that there will be some general attempt to select
only those persons who are really fit to exercise the important
functions entrusted to them. But even so protected, the Government
feel that in the ultimate issue in a conflict between the two
Chambers, the first and representative Chamber must prevail. The other
body may review and may suspend, but for the case of measures sent up
in successive sessions from the representative Chamber on which no
agreement can be reached, we have introduced the machinery which
appears in the Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, that both
Chambers shall sit together, debate together, vote together, and the
majority shall decide. The whole success of that operation depends
upon the numerical proportion observed between the two Chambers. In
the Australian Commonwealth the proportion of the First Chamber is
rather more than two to one; in the Transvaal the proportion will be
more than four to one, namely, sixty-five to fifteen; and in the
Orange River Colony it will be thirty-eight to eleven.

The other provisions of the Constitution will mainly follow the lines
of the Transvaal Constitution. The Constitution of the Orange River
Colony will become effective as soon as possible; and I should think
that the new Parliament might assemble in Bloemfontein some time
during the autumn of next year. When that work has been completed, and
the new Parliament has assembled, the main direction of South African
affairs in these Colonies will have passed from our hands.

Sir, it is the earnest desire of the Government to steer colonial
affairs out of English Party politics, not only in the interest of the
proper conduct of those affairs, but in order to clear the arena at
home for the introduction of measures which affect the masses of the