believe that they saw in him, bronzed as he was by a Karoo sun, the handsome, fresh-complexioned youth who had left them in 1831. His mother could scarcely realise that this was her long-absent son.

On his return, on the 20th of October, 1851, he was married in Cape Town to Miss E. M. Jarvis, the daughter of Mr. Hercules Crosse Jarvis, a scion of the family which had produced Earl St. Vincent, as well as Sir John Jervis, the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Mr. Jarvis was the first citizen of Cape Town, for twenty years occupying the position of Chairman of the Municipality of this period. He used the influence of his position to the utmost to aid the movement in favour of representative institutions. He was elected one of the original members to represent Cape Town in the first Parliament of 1854, and subsequently he became a member of the Legislative Council. His views were in complete harmony with those of his new son-in-law: they were both Englishmen who carried with them to their new home their English birthright of self-government, and the determination to establish and exercise it.

Mr. Molteno entered with spirit into the various questions which came up for consideration by the community of Beaufort. He became a member of the Municipal Council, and at a subsequent period of the Divisional Council, and fulfilled the duties of his position on these two bodies with his usual energy. His first public act was directed to turn the great extent of Crown lands in the division to good account. They abutted on the farms in the district, and were squatted on by 'trek Boers' and Hottentots. The principal object was not so much to acquire the grazing of these lands, as to eject bad characters, who utilised these pieces of ground for holding communication with the farmers' servants, and robbing the farmers of their stock.

In conjunction with other residents, he proposed to the Government, in 1847, that these lands should be leased by

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 of 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.

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.' The early colonist from England grew up from the

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

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.'1

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

'Merivale, On Colonisation, vol. i. p. 70.

2 Mr. Lucas's Introduction to Lewis on Dependencies, p. xxx.

3

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.2 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 some the 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 1 Lewis, p. 159. 2 Colonisation, vol. i. p. 101. Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, p. 94.

Merivale, vol. i. p. 104.

Adderley, The Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell, pp. 4, 5.