cHAP. 111] TREATMENT OF NATIVE RACES 1071

These provisions therefore make the final authority of
sdministration the Executive Government of the Union, and
t seems impossible to deny that the Executive Government
must inevitably in the long run be responsible for native
policy, and any attempt to deprive it of such responsibility
would be fatal to the efficient working of the Union. At
the same time, it is obviously necessary—and the fact was
accepted both by the South Africa Native Affairs Commission!
 and the Natal Native Affairs Commission >—that
permanency in native policy should be attained, and this
could hardly be secured in the change of political governments.
 The element of continuity is secured by the appointment
 of this permanent Commission, which must naturally
attain great influence by its knowledge and by its right of
being consulted, and it may be hoped that the new experiment,
 when actually tried, will be more successful than any
previous experiments in South Africa have been.
Hitherto attempts have been made in Natal, the Transvaal
and the Orange River Colony * to give the Governor an independent
 position with regard to native matters, while the
Imperial Government has retained the sole control of the
Protectorates and Basutoland. It is clear that for the full
development of South Africa the Protectorates and Basutoland
 must ultimately fall to the Union Government, and it
is equally clear that fitful efforts to preserve the independent
control by the Governor of native affairs cannot ultimately
produce any good results.
As we have seen, the Aborigines Protection Board of
Western Australia, which at one time it was proposed to
keep independent of the Colonial Government, was abolished
in 1897, after it had worked unsatisfactorily and with much
friction for seven years, and it was not proposed to make
any similar attempt in South Africa, since in the case of

+ Cf. Parl. Pap., Cd. 2399, p. 31.
* Ibid., Cd. 3889, p. 15. The Commission here recommended a Council
0 advise the Governor, and one was set up by Act No. 1 of 1909,
' Letters Patent, December 6, 1906, s. 51.
! Letters Patent, June 5. 1907, s. 52. The powers conferred are very

7aoue,