1002 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART Iv
only to the slight restraints above enumerated, the Bloemfontein
 Conference resulted in the adoption of a clause (s. 64)
providing for the reservation of any Bill altering the provisions
 of the Constitution (ss. 32-50) relating to the composition
 and powers of the House of Assembly, and of any Bill
abolishing Provincial Councils or abridging their powers
save as provided in s. 85 of the Constitution itself. This
alteration was in the main due to two causes. In the first
place, the supporters of the principle of ‘one vote one
value’ were determined, after their efforts to rescue the
principle from the onslaught of the Cape Parliament, which
suggested a statutory preference of 15 per cent. in favour of
sparsely populated districts! to do all that was possible to
safeguard absolutely their principle, and so adopted the
requirement of reservation. In the second place, the Natal
delegates were desirous of securing the position of the
Provincial Councils as far as practicable and therefore provided
 for the stereotyping of the existing arrangements by
requiring the reservation of any Bill altering them. Even
so the possibility of altering the Constitution remains very
great, and the Union Parliament is really in a stronger
position than any Parliament save probably that of New
Zealand and that of Newfoundland, which of course .are
simple unified Colonies with no complicated questions of two
races of equal civilization and equal resources.

The principle of proportional representation was sacrificed as far as
concerned the Lower House of the Union Parliament in order to secure
the retention of that of equal electorates. There were, however, strong
practical objections to it: see Sir H. de Villiers’s speech at Bloemfontein
on May 11 (Cape Times, May 12, 1909).