public auction at an upset price of 30s. per annum, the extent to be pointed out by the field-cornet, there being at that time no trigonometrical survey of the Colony; indeed, no survey at all of the Government lands. This measure turned out a great success, and the Government were soon able to increase the upset price of lands so leased. It was through his efforts that the town of Beaufort acquired the great area of commonage which it now enjoys.

He now turned his mercantile experience to account, and, in the middle of the year 1852, started a new business in Beaufort, which subsequently became known as the firm P. J. Alport and Co. During the period of his connection with Mr. J. B. Ebden, the latter gentleman had started the well-known Cape of Good Hope Bank, and Mr. Molteno had gained a considerable knowledge of banking under him. The town of Beaufort, the capital town of a district twice as large as Ireland, was without a bank of any kind. Mr. Molteno had done something to supply the want by issuing his own notes payable at Capetown, Port Elizabeth, and Mossel Bay. These had a large circulation. Nevertheless commercial progress was naturally hampered, and Mr. Molteno undertook to start a bank; an undertaking which he carried to a successful issue, to the great advantage of the district.

Mr. Vincent Rice first acted as his manager ; but shortly afterwards, in 1853, Mr. Alport, his brother-in-law, a Yorkshireman of the family of that name, who had come to the Cape for his health, took the active management under Mr. Molteno's general supervision, and the business gradually assumed very large dimensions. In 1853 he purchased the extensive property in the town of Beaufort, which has ever since been in the occupation of Messrs. J. P. Alport and Co., while he further extended his business operations to various other centres in the district, such as Victoria West and Prince Albert.

a

Colonial Self-Government-Three periods of Colonial Policy-Absence of interference with American Colonies-Attempt to interfere fatal-Gradual emancipation of Colonies-Early struggles at Cape-Anti-Convict Agitation -Establishment of Representative Institutions—First Session-Objects of Representation-Law of Master and Servant codified-Takes prominent part in Legislation-Sketch by 'Limner '-Grievances of Burghers-Sir George Grey-Co-operates in development of the Colony-Supports despatch of Troops to India-Defends Free State-Defends Representative Institutions -Condemns Government Financial Policy.

career.

MR. MOLTENO was on the threshold of a new and distinguished He was one of those Englishmen who have vindicated the capacity of our race to govern itself. The demand of English colonists has ever been that when they left England they carried with them the rights of Englishmen, and by this they mean no abstract rights, but those conditions which the English nation has established as suited to its people. The offspring of England cannot be a subject race, even where the dominion is exercised by their kinsmen who remain at home; they are an integral part of the English people which, by the circumstances of the case, must be separate in government and domicile.

This was the theory of both the Home Government and the colonists so early as the days of Sir Walter Raleigh, when Queen Elizabeth held out, as an inducement to those who went out with him, that they were permitted to accompany him 'with guarantee of a continuance of the enjoyment of all the rights which her subjects enjoyed at home.'1The early colonist from England grew up from the

1

1 Merivale, On Colonisation, vol. i. p. 100; Adderley, Colonial Policy, p. 17.

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beginning in a spirit of independence and self-reliance, and instead of parting with a portion of his rights when he settled in a distant dependency, the emigrant felt that he breathed a freer air than that of the land he had relinquished.'?

The reply of the people of Barbados, when called upon to submit to the Government of the Commonwealth, exemplified this spirit. "They replied that they had not gone out to be subjected to the will and command of those that stay at home. Englishmen living in Barbados had the same rights as Englishmen living in England; and as Englishmen living in Barbados did not interfere with Englishmen living in England, it was no business of the home section of Englishmen to interfere with the colonial section. They were not represented in the English Parliament—the English Parliament therefore could not exercise authority over them except by their own free will. They were not a dependency, they were a second England—a colony.'? Thus the seeds of responsible government were coeval with the earliest colonial settlements.

Our colonial policy seems to fall naturally into three periods. In the first, which lasted down to the War of American Independence, the colonies mostly governed themselves. The early English colonists were in practice nearly independent of the mother-country, except as to their external commercial relations.'3 Adam Smith tells us the same thing :- In everything except their foreign trade the liberty of English colonists to manage their own affairs in their own way is complete.' There was so little interference on the part of England with the self-government of the colonies, that there was no official department of Government charged with their relations, and the only business being

2

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· Merivale, On Colonisation, vol. i. p. 70.
2 Mr. Lucas's Introduction to Lewis on Dependencies, p. xxx.
* Lewis, On Dependencies, p. 159.

commercial, it was transacted by the Board of Trade. We controlled the commercial policies of the colonists; but as this was in accord with ideas then universally prevalent, it gave rise to no ill-feeling. This control we had copied from the policy of Spain towards her colonies, a vicious example. Merivale tells us that representative government was seldom expressly granted in the earliest colonial charters; it was assumed as a matter of right. In 1619 . a House of Burgesses broke out in Virginia,' says Hutchinson, in his ‘History of Massachusetts.' 3 It was at once acceded to by the mother-country as a matter of course.

So free were the American colonies that in people elected the Governor himself. In some neither the Crown nor the Governor had any veto on the laws passed by the Assemblies ! Thus Connecticut and Rhode Island were to all intents democracies, united to the Empire by allegiance only. It never occurred to our first American colonists that they were not capable on their arrival on new shores of the same measure of liberty, and of the same discharge of all social duties, as they had been accustomed to in England.' They not only governed, but defended themselves; and during the Seven Years' War they raised, clothed, and paid 25,000 soldiers. They put down, unaided, internal rebellions and native risings. To such an extent were they accustomed to rely on themselves, that one of the grievances in the Declaration of Independence was the quartering of English troops among them in time of peace.'

The second period of colonial policy opened with our fatal imposition of the Stamp Act, and led to our tampering with colonial self-government. As a consequence we lost the American colonies, almost all we then had; and we sought to hold those few that remained, and the new

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colonies which we subsequently acquired, by governing them from home, 'taking no service from them, but the expense on ourselves. It was in this second period that we occupied and acquired the Cape. The prevailing ideas were there applied. We fought for it, and we paid for the fighting, and had the privilege of the full responsibility of government, with results which were far from satisfactory, for a series of Kaffir wars had resulted from our vacillating policy—the effects of an attempt to control a matter of extreme delicacy from a distance.

Notwithstanding the sacrifice of blood and treasure to which we had been put we received but little thanks, and indeed alienated the frontier population to such an extent that they preferred to abandon all their property and go out into the unknown wilds rather than remain under so uncongenial a rule.

Under such conditions and such a mode of government, the Cape was indeed an expensive luxury to the English Government.

Speaking in the House of Commons in 1855, Sir W. Molesworth said that our military expenditure at the Cape amounted to between 400,0001. and 500,0001. a year, besides a series of Kaffir wars, which on an average had cost this country 1,000,0001. a year.' To this second period must be referred the attempt to force convicts upon the Cape, with the ever-memorable resistance called out by it—a resistance

a which so stimulated the demand for representative institutions, that on the presentation of the petition to this effect Sir Harry Smith, the Governor, felt himself compelled, without waiting for instructions, to consent.'

Then comes the third period of our colonial policy, in which the principle of colonial self-government recovered itself. As has already been mentioned, there was no self

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Sir Charles Adderley, Colonial Policy, p. 169. 2 • The normal current of colonial history,' says Sir Charles Adderley, 'is perpetual assertion of the right to self-government.'—Colonial Policy, p. 3.