ing of representative institutions in South Africa. He realised that the Legislature could only do good work if it really represented the feelings, the aspirations, and the wants of the community. At this time large bands of natives roamed over the country subject to little or no control. They were under no special headmen, they preyed upon the farmers, and their migratory habits prevented any legal supervision being exercised over them. Mr. Molteno represented the feeling of the country, which was very strong, that some legal control should be exercised over these persons as well as over those who were nominally in the service of the farmers. This state of affairs prevailed not only in the east of the Colony, but to a greater extent even on the northern and north-eastern frontiers, and he drew attention to the absence of all control over the streams of native foreigners who were pouring into the Colony. He moved resolutions that a law dealing with the relations of master and servant should be introduced by the Government. He said he spoke

SIR,-I may say I consider myself a practical farmer. I have lived and resided on my own farm for many years, and employed a number of servants, ten, twenty, and even as many as fifty servants. I do not consider myself an ultra man on the subject. I think it is one of the main objects of Parliament to express the feelings of the country, and I think it will be highly useful for this House to be correctly informed of the views and opinions of the public throughout this vast Colony upon the important subject which I have thought it my duty to bring forward. If the complaints of the country inhabitants are unheard, they may bear for a time the grievances under which they labour-they will bear them to the last moment-and then what do they do? They set themselves in opposition to the law, which is, of course, unjustifiable. Therefore the country members are bound to represent faithfully to this House the sentiments and feelings of their constituents.

In vain he urged upon the Executive Government to bring in a law dealing with this subject. Nothing was done. Again, without success, in the session of 1855, he drew

attention to it, and in the session of 1856 he introduced an elaborate Act which repealed all previous enactments on the subject, and which remains to-day the fundamental code of law upon the question of master and servant. In place of allowing masters to take the law into their own hands in punishing their servants, thus at times leading to violence and outrage, the relations were placed upon a legal footing, and the authority of the magistrate was interposed between the hasty violence of the master exasperated by the obstinacy and carelessness of his servant. A few slight amendments were made by Mr. Molteno's Government in 1873 and 1874 to this measure, which still remains the law of the Colony, and has worked most successfully.

In the first session of the Colonial Parliament Mr. Molteno gave evidence of his skill in parliamentary debate, and the prominent part which he was likely to take in the conduct of parliamentary government. Upon the opening of the session of 1855 we find the following picture drawn of him by 'Limner,'' among a series describing the members of the Parliament, with considerable skill and ability :—

This gentleman has occupied the next seat until within the last few days, since the return of Mr. Watermeyer. The representative of Beaufort is good-natured with everybody and everything but the Government and the Eastern Province people. He is apparently in the prime of life and a man of ample proportions; cultivates his beard, or rather allows it to cultivate itself; has an intellectual appearance, a bright, mischievous, and restless eye, is easily amused, and takes a very active share in the business of the House. His speeches are made off-hand, without much consideration or effort. A kind of ready-made oratory, full of practical remarks, penetration, inexperience, and mistakes. He is a consistent denouncer of Government abuses, and never commits himself to an appearance of wishing to curry favour with the Government or its representatives. He is very apt to be led away

'This was the nom de plume of P. W. Murray, Senior. He subsequently became one of the bitterest political partisans against Mr. Molteno's policy, and this found expression in the articles of the successive journals of which he became the editor.

by excessive zeal for anti-Government attacks. He remembers great oppressions and thoughtless injuries which the people have had to bear. He has very little sympathy with any policy admired by hon. gentlemen from the Eastern Province, and is a formidable opponent to a Burgher Law for the Western Province. When on his legs he addresses himself rather to individual members than to the House; he is outspoken, vigilant, attentive, and is justly entitled to be considered, by comparison, a parliamentary star of some magnitude.

The allusion in this extract to the Burgher Law refers to the most important matter which had yet come before the newly created Colonial Parliament, namely, the Burgher Act for the defence of the Colony. This question led to closer divisions in the House than any other yet raised, and was the cause of intense excitement throughout the Western Province.

A Bill was introduced in the Legislative Council, which was approved there and was transmitted in due course to the Assembly, where it met with the most stringent opposition from a majority of the western members led by Mr. Molteno. His opportunity had come for drawing attention to the enormous evils suffered by the burghers in the campaign of 1846, and for putting an effective stop to their recurrence in the future. He was determined to provide as far as possible against a recurrence of what had been so conspicuous on that occasion, when the inhabitants of the entire Colony were assembled on the eastern frontier without any arrangement having been made for supplying them with provisions or forage. The want of foresight displayed on the part of those in authority, combined with utter ignorance of the mode of operations most effective against such an enemy as the Kaffirs, had resulted, not only in a vast amount of unnecessary suffering and delay, but in the failure of the chief object of the campaign, the breaking up of the Kaffir power.

The Bill, as it was received from the Council, provided for the organisation of the burghers in time of war under officers selected by themselves as commandants, who would

themselves select the commandant-general, who was to communicate directly with the Governor, and not through military officers of lower rank, for all great operations in the war. To this there was no objection, but the Bill provided further that the selection of those to serve was to be by ballot, and that the wealthy should be allowed to purchase substitutes. Most objectionable of all was the absolute power which it proposed to give to the Governor to call out the burgher forces for any and every purpose which might seem good to him, both within and without the boundaries of the Colony.

Mr. Molteno, in opposing the Bill, entered at length into the sufferings and hardships endured by the western burghers in the war of 1846, to which we have already drawn attention, while he and those who acted with him pointed out that the vast distance separating the bulk of the western burghers from the frontier rendered impossible any immediate and effective aid in case of an outbreak of natives. They objected that the power of purchasing substitutes would operate most unfairly towards the poorer burghers; that the ballot was an objectionable mode of choice; and that the proper principle was to tax the Colony to raise and maintain a really effective police force, always ready and suited for the purpose in view.

But, above all, it was monstrous to give power to the Governor to call out the burghers for any and every purpose in his sole discretion. As Mr. Molteno wrote at the time: The Bill proposes to place at the absolute disposal of whoever may happen to be the Governor of this Colony, be he a man in whom the people have or have not confidence-by the most objectionable plan of the ballot-a large portion of the inhabitants of this Colony, without the least limitation as to the manner in which they are to be employed, either within or without the Colony, or of the time they are to be so kept employed.'1 1 Letter to the Commercial Advertiser, 8th of May, 1855. VOL. I.

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He further pointed out that, judging from the actions of past Governors, the burghers might be used for further attacks on the emigrant farmers or on powerful native chiefs, such as the Basutos, and in other cases in which the Colony had no say and no concern.

The Bill, however, passed its second reading. In committee Mr. Molteno continued to offer the most strenuous. opposition to the clauses taken seriatim. He made full use of the power of a minority under the rules of the House. In consequence of this opposition the chance of the Bill passing was becoming remote, and the Colonial Secretary intervened with a new proposal for a reference to a select committee. It appeared that the Governor (Sir George Grey) really agreed with Mr. Molteno's views, and did not ask for the enormous powers which the Bill would force on him.

The Colonial Secretary stated that the Governor would be quite content if the Bill were referred to a select committee with the instruction to provide that the burghers to be enrolled should be 'organised for the defence of the Colony in their respective divisions'-thus limiting the power of the Governor and confining the organisation to the defence of the respective divisions of the Colony in which the burghers resided. At the same time the Colonial Secretary admitted that the objections to the ballot were well founded, as well as those directed against a clause enacting that no burgher should leave his district without proper notice to the Government officials-a restriction to which Mr. Molteno had strenuously objected in his criticisms of the Bill.

These proposals of the Colonial Secretary removed the chief objections urged by Mr. Molteno, while they fully justified his opposition to the crude form of the original Bill. His name was included on the committee of five which eventually brought up a draft Bill that became law.

It would appear from this that the policy which led to the battle of Boomplats was not approved by Mr. Molteno, or by the Cape Colonists generally.