1260 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PART V 
motion being put in such a form as to reflect upon the 
Governor instead of attacking the ministers, and secondly 
the motion was unsuccessful, while the Government pro- 
seeded to accept the Governor’s advice and placed the forces 
under the supreme control of the general officer commanding 
in South Africa. The Secretary of State also approved his 
action in a dispatch of March 21, 1878. This case was also 
of importance because of a question that arose as to the 
proclamation of martial law. It appeared from a dispatch 
of June 9, 1878, that he had agreed to a declaration of martial 
law on the advice of ministers, so as to provide that Colonial 
judicial officers should preside at the trials of martial law 
and try offences, in place of dealing with captured persons 
by drum-head court martial. In a reply on February 16, 
1878, the Secretary of State expressed regret that it should 
have been necessary to resort to martial law, and his hope 
that it would be found possible to amend the Colonial law 
50 as to avoid the recurrence of similar proceedings. 
A favourable view of Sir B. Frere’s proceedings is taken 
by Todd! but, on the other hand, Mr. P. A. Molteno, in his 
life of his father,? has represented the situation in a manner 
very unfavourable to Sir Bartle Frere. It was, in his opinion, 
the aim of Sir J. Molteno to encourage the Colony to adopt 
a self-reliant attitude and to carry out operations affecting 
the Colony by means of the local forces only. Nor can there 
ve much doubt that it would be impossible to defend many 
of the views expressed by Sir Bartle Frere. He could claim 
by law and by constitutional practice no power whatever over 
the local forces except what was given to him by law, and the 
fact that the existing Acts passed before the grant of respon- 
sible government gave powers of control to the Governor 
t Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies,® pp. 480-90. Cf. 
Wilmot, South Africa, i. 238-61; above, pp- 289, 290. 
v Sir John Molteno, ii. 300-401. See also Cape Parl. Pap., 1878, A. 4, 
p. 14, for an able opinion by the Cape Attorney-General, and cf. Parl. Pap., 
0. 2740, p. 103. Sir B. Frere was at least very headstrong, and quite 
ignorant of constitutional law. It is fair, however to say that Sir W. 
Manning held that a New South Wales Act of 1867 conferred a personal 
duty on the Governor; see Clark, Australian Constitutional Law, pp. 263 sed.