1002 THE FEDERATIONS AND THE UNION [PART Iv 
only to the slight restraints above enumerated, the Bloem- 
fontein Conference resulted in the adoption of a clause (s. 64) 
providing for the reservation of any Bill altering the pro- 
visions of the Constitution (ss. 32-50) relating to the compo- 
sition 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 pro- 
vided 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).