CHAPTER V

TREATY RELATIONS

§ 1. IMPERIAL CONTROL IN TREATY MATTERS
THE Imperial Crown has an absolute power of concluding
treaties, and in so doing it is advised by the Imperial Ministry.
There is no case yet known in which any treaty proper has
been made without the consent of the Imperial Government,
and the normal mode of making treaties is to conclude them
through plenipotentiaries granted full powers by the Crown.
The term treaty which has been applied, for example, to the
Customs Agreement between the South African Customs
Union and the Dominion of New Zealand is merely a terminological
 inexactitude. In a few cases Governors have been
empowered to conclude agreements in the nature of treaties.
For example, in 1901 an agreement was made between
Lord Milner on behalf of the Transvaal and the Governor-General
 of Mozambique with regard to the recruitment of
native labour for service in the Transvaal mines and railway
rates,! and this agreement was superseded by another agreement
 concluded by Lord Selborne as Governor of the Transvaal
 with the ex-Governor-General of Mozambique on April 1,
1909.2 The High Commissioner for South Africa has always
been entrusted by his commission ? with special powers of
“ommunication with the Governments of foreign possessions
! Parl. Pap., Cd. 2104, p. 189.
* Parl, Pap., Cd. 4587. In 1909 also the Government made an informal
Arrangement with Portugal as to the deportation of Indians via Lourenco
Marques,
* e.g. In Lord Selborne’s Commission, 1905, clause iii; Lord Gladstone's,
1910. There are also many arrangements between South African Governors
 and the Free State and the Transvaal, e. g. a railway convention (Cape
and Free State), October 16, 1896; telegraph (Cape, Natal, Transvaal, and
Free State), August 11, 1884. The High Commissioner signed the treaty with
"he Transvaal as to Swaziland in 1894, See Cape Parl. Pap., 1898, G. 81.
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