i8
RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT [PART 1
of a dismemberment of the province. He urged that if the
representation of east and west were unfair the Parliament
could alter it and adjust it, and all that he would do was to
suggest that if the experiment of having a single legislature
would not work steps might be taken to divide the country
into two provinces, and have a central and two provincial
legislatures ; but this he deemed only proper to be resorted to
if the existing arrangement should prove unsatisfactory. He
refuted the comparison with New South Wales and Queens-
land by pointing out that the size of Queensland and of
New South Wales was out of all proportion to that of
the Cape.
In the case of Natal responsible government was discussed
almost ad nauseam before it was adopted. Representative
government was established by the charter of 1856, and in
1869 a supplementary charter was issued under which the
Lieutenant-Governor was empowered to appoint two elective
members of the Legislative Council, a body of mixed nominees
and elective members, to be members of the Executive Council.
In 1870 the Council was asked to pass a Bill bestowing
responsible government on the Colony, creating a legislature
of twenty elective members, and providing for the possi-
bility of union with the Transvaal Republic and the Orange
Free State : the Bill was not to become law without an Act
of the Imperial Parliament, but it did not pass the House.
In 1873 three elected and one nominee members were added
to the House, and in 1875 a curious change was made in the
constitution of the Legislative Council by adding to it for five
years eight non-official nominee members, and by requiring
that taxation Bills should only be carried by two-thirds of the
members present when they were discussed. In 1880 another
Bill for responsible government was introduced, providing for
a legislature of two Houses, the upper being a nominee body,
and for ministerial responsibility. It was sent home by
the request of the House with an address to the Queen, but
Sir Garnet Wolseley, then in connexion with the native
disturbances Governor and High Commissioner of South-
east Africa, reported unfavourably upon the project, and
