colony of the Cape of Good Hope was conquered and occupied by the British, to whom it was formally ceded in 1814. The government then established, like the Dutch government which preceded it, had few of the characteristics of representative government. All public powers were vested in a governor and council appointed by the British Crown.

Early in the nineteenth century there began in Great Britain an agitation for the abolition of slavery. Finally the British Parliament, about 1834, freed the slaves throughout the entire British Empire, and, largely because of the complete control which the mother country had over the government of the Cape colony, enforced the emancipation act in what seemed to the Boers a harsh manner. This action on the part of the British incensed the Boers, who believed that they were unjustly despoiled of their lawful property. Quite a large number of them therefore decided, in 1836 and 1837, to remove themselves and their possessions to the interior of the country beyond the jurisdiction of the British governor, where they might, unmolested by what they regarded as foreign oppression, live their lives according to rules of their own making.

One band of these emigrants established themselves in the fertile district along the coast, northeast of the Cape of Good Hope, which subsequently became known as Natal. Here they organized, in 1840, the Republic of Natalia. The British, who claimed that, as the Boers were British subjects, all settlements which they made belonged to the British Crown, sent a military force to Natal, conquered the Boers, and declared Natal to be a British colony.

Other bands of emigrants went still farther west

across the Orange River, and still others farther north beyond the river Vaal. In these districts they founded two more republics, known, respectively, as the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic. In 1848 the Orange Free State was annexed by the British, but in 1854 its independence was recognized. In 1852 also the independence of the Transvaal, under the name of the South African Republic, was recognized by Great Britain. The population of these states was, for the most part, composed of savage black tribes, with whom the white Europeans were in almost continual conflict. The European population was mainly Boer, but in both these republics, and particularly in the Orange Free State, there were quite a number of British.

The relations of these Boer states with Great Britain were on the whole not friendly. The Boers disliked the British, whom they regarded as their oppressors, while the British feared the effects of the policy pursued by the Boers toward the native black population, which was almost continually producing native wars. In 1867 the British therefore annexed the South African Republic whose independence it had recognized in 1852. In 1880 the Boers declared their independence, and after a short war that independence was recognized by Great Britain, subject to a somewhat undefined and unsubstantial right of suzerainty in Great Britain.

Finally, in the latter part of the nineteenth century the discovery of gold in the Transvaal led to a large immigration of foreigners into the South African Republic. The attempt on the part of Great Britain to exercise her right of suzerainty in order to protect what she professed to regard as the rights in the Republic of these foreigners, many of whom were of British national

ity, brought about a second war between Great Britain on the one hand, and the two Boer republics on the other. The result of this war was the ultimate defeat of the Boers and the annexation of the two Boer republics, which took place in 1902.

The difference in nationality which characterized the various British colonies in South Africa, and the bitterness engendered by the more than half a century of veiled if not open hostility which had been incident to race rivalries, had made unavailing the early attempts at union, which had been made as far back as 1877. In addition to these obstacles to political union the various districts had been from a geographical point of view almost completely separated. Natal and the Cape of Good Hope were, it is true, connected by the sea, but the African coast northeast of the Cape does not present many good harbors. Apart from the sea the means of communication were very bad until the completion of railways which had come about only in comparatively recent times. In 1909, however, all the colonies were connected by railways, while in one or two instances branch lines led to points on the coast. In that year, apparently partly because of the belief that the colonies concerned had sufficient in common to justify their union, and partly in the hope that the union would be influential in causing the existing race hostility to diminish, the South African Union Act was agreed upon by the colonies concerned and was passed by the British Parliament.

The South African Union Act is based upon quite a different theory from that which lies at the basis of the constitution of the United States, Canada, and Australia. In the first place, it abandons the fundamental

idea of federal government. That is, it does not attempt to provide in the constitution for two governments whose powers are determined by enumerating the powers of one and reserving all other powers to the other. On the contrary, the South African constitution gives to the Union Parliament full and complete legislative power for the peace, order, and good government of the Union. This general grant of power is further not really limited by the grant of specified enumerated powers to the provinces, the name provided by the act for the former colonies which are united by it. The act does, it is true, give such powers as that of local taxation and of borrowing money for provincial purposes to the provincial councils, which take the place of the former colonial parliaments. But the exercise of most of these local powers must be made with the approval of the GovernorGeneral of the Union, or in accordance with rules and regulations to be laid down by the Union Parliament.

In the second place, in order to continue in existence the provinces as they were at the time of the union, it is provided that all the laws in force in the colonies at the time of the establishment of the Union shall continue to be applicable in the respective provinces until amended or repealed by the Union Parliament or the competent provincial council.

Finally, the Union Parliament is authorized to delegate its powers to the provincial councils.

The method provided by the South African Union Act for determining the relations of the central and provincial governments consists then, in ultimate analysis, in the maintenance for the present of existing conditions subject to amendment by the central legislature. It has the great advantage that it makes unnecessary

any attempt to fix the permanent position of either the central government or the province. It also does not require for its successful execution the establishment of a judicial tribunal for the determination of questions of constitutional power, accompanied by all the disadvantages which the exercise of such powers has been shown to entail.

Finally, it is to be remarked that local rights are not liable to be infringed, since existing colonial law is continued until modified by either Union or provincial legislation. The equal representation which each province is accorded in the Union Senate may be relied on to prevent any centralization of government which is not approved by the provinces. On the other hand, the power which each province is inferentially recognized as possessing to change existing laws may not be made use of to the disadvantage of national unity and of the common interest. For all acts passed by the provincial councils must, to be valid, receive the approval of the Governor-General of the Union.

It may perhaps be said with propriety that such was substantially the form of government proposed for the United States by Alexander Hamilton to the convention which met in 1787. Its adoption was prevented by the prevalent states' rights feeling of the day.

This sketch of one hundred and twenty-five years of federal government would seem to show:

First. That there has been a continuous and persistent tendency to expand the powers of the central government, and to curtail those of the provinces or states. Almost each one of the confederate constitutions which have been adopted since the Constitution of the United States was framed has widened the sphere of activity