cuAP. vi] GOVERNOR AS IMPERIAL OFFICER 297
under protest! And it may be noted that when in 1908
the Imperial Government was at variance with the Natal
Government, both on the question of the Indemnity Bill
and the payment of Dinuzulu’s salary, which the Natal
Government had stopped but which the Imperial Govern-
ment on legal advice admitted themselves liable to pay, the
Natal Government did not resign.?
In connexion with the latter issue it may be interesting to
quote remarks of Mr. Evans, M.L.A. of Natal, who wrote
as follows :— 3
If the Natal Government on the advice of their law
officers thought the salary should have been suspended or
withdrawn, the first thing to do was to obtain the approval
of the Secretary of State. If, as was the case, the Secretary
of State on the advice of his law officers objected, the Natal
Government should have entered a dignified protest and
continued to pay it. Had they done so the dignity of the
Colony would not have suffered, and all this unrest and
recrimination, making Natal a by-word among the British
people, would have been avoided. That we are regarded
as hopelessly in the wrong by the British people is evident
by the fact that both parties in the House of Commons,
those usually regarded as our friends as well as those deemed
our critics, are at one, Earl Crewe and Mr. Lyttelton, Sir
Gilbert Parker and Colonel Seely. This is the first time
I remember this to have happened, and surely it should
give us pause.
Naturally disputes between the Colonial and Imperial
Governments are grave and serious things, but the unity
of the Empire is more serious still. If there disappears
a power which has the theoretic and practical right, subject
to the duty of the fullest consultation, to conclude treaties
and to legislate and so forth for the Empire at large, it will
be harder to recreate it if the growth of the power of the
Dominions causes them to ask for a Federal Government.
1 See Parl. Pap., Cd. 3765 ; Canadian Annual Review, 1907, pp. 328, 329,
365.
* See Parl. Pap., Cd. 4194, 4328.
3 Parl. Pap., Cd. 4328, p. 77. Cf. also Sir C. Dilke in Hansard, Ser. 4,
exe, 113-5.
