CHAP. VI] THE LOWER HOUSES 501
In Natal a member must be qualified as a registered elector
and hold no office under the Crown other than a political
office or an office in the army or navy on retired or half-pay.
A member could resign and vacated his seat if he failed to
attend for a whole session, ceased to hold his qualifications
or to be a British subject, became insolvent, was attainted of
treason, or was sentenced to imprisonment for any infamous
crime, became insane, or accepted any office under the Crown,
or remained a party to a Government contract for one month,
but this did not apply to a purchaser of Government land or
a lessee of Government land.
In the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony a member
must be qualified to be registered as a voter, must not hold
an office of profit under the Crown other than a ministerial
office or certain other specified offices, must not be an
unrehabilitated insolvent, not be insane, or have acted as
a registering or revising officer of a voters’ list for the division
for which he stood. He could resign and he vacated his seat
if he failed to attend for a whole ordinary session, ceased to
be a British subject, became insolvent, was a public defaulter,
or was attainted of treason or was sentenced to imprisonment
for an infamous offence, became of unsound mind, or accepted
any office of profit under the Crown except such offices as
did not disqualify for election to membership.
The qualifications for members of the House of Assembly
in South Africa are as follows :—
He must (a) be qualified to be registered as a voter for
the election of members of the House of Assembly in one
of the provinces ; (b) have resided for five years within the
limits of the Union as existing at the time when he is elected ;
‘c) be a British subject of European descent.
The disqualification of persons otherwise qualified, and
the conditions on which the seats of members become
vacated, correspond generally with the conditions on which
seats in the Upper House are vacated, and it is hardly neces-
sary to give them in detail.
9 Edw. VII. ¢. 9, ss. 53, 54. See below, pp. 553, 554.
