SOUTH AFRICAN FRANCHISE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sin,--I think thirty-six years' intimate association with South Africa qualifies me to speak with as much authority on the above question as the Lord Bishop of Pretoria, whose connexion is much more recent.
I know about the Universities of Stellenbosch, Pretoria, and the Witwatersrand ; and the young folk therein are as capable of ventilating foolish ideas as Oxford or Cambridge with their " We won't fight" resolutions, &c.
University students are not responsible for governing a country, and possess no knowledge to qualify them to assume office, or give advice.
In quoting Lord Selborne the Bishop is wrong in assuming that he ever stated that he was in favour of Natives and Whites possessing identically the same franchise. I can recollect Lord Selborne saying that the interests of Black and White in the future prosperity of South Africa were identical ; but that is a very different thing to saying they should all vote on exactly the same franchise.
I am sure General Smuts's idea that a special Council of Native Representatives should discuss and arrive at decisions on native questions, and that these decisions should be laid before the House of Assembly by specially elected White Members of Parliament, is quite a workable idea. It is pretty clear that the House would not turn down recommendations put forward under such "authority without very good reason ; and the colour question and miscegenation would not arise.— I am, yours faithfully, MONTROSE. Auchmar, Dryinen, Glasgow.
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