THE PROBLEM• OF THE TRANS VAAL . CONSTIT U TION.
THE Government have in their hands the Report of the Commission sent to South Africa to consider the conditions under which the Transvaal Constitution shall be granted, and it is now their business to decide upon the principles which shall govern that Constitution. The task is an exceedingly difficult one, but of one thing the country may be sure. The Government have no desire to treat the matter in anything but an impartial spirit. They may blunder in their choice, and the actual result of their decision may be injurious to the best interests of the British Empire ; but at any rate the wish of the Government is, we are sure, to make a fair as well as a permanent settlement, and to allow the Transvaal to take its place as a free, self-governing, loyal, and contented community in the British Empire. The notion that the Prime Minister or the Cabinet have any ideas of an anti-British or anti- Imperial character, or that they wish to favour the Boers and to humiliate the British and place them at the mercy of the Dutch section of the community, is utterly ridiculous.
We have no knowledge as to the direction in which opinion in the Cabinet is shaping itself on this momentous question. We should like, however, to state what appear to us to be the ground principles on which the solution of the problem ought to be attempted. The primary fact in regard to the Transvaal is that a considerable majority of the population is British in race, language, and sympathy, and that the Boer element is in a decided minority. If, that is, a direct poll of the people were taken, the British vote would greatly outnumber the Dutch. The majority being clearly on the British side, it is only right and reasonable, quite apart from any question of political or Imperial expediency, that the British should have the majority of the representatives who are to control the country under representative institutions. Laws and administrative acts can only have their full power when men feel that they have the sanction of the majority behind them.. It is therefore most important that when a Legislature makes laws it shall not be possible for the majority of the people legislated for to say that they disapprove of those laws. This being the case, it is essential that no section of the people shall be armed with a greater legislative power than any other section, and, in fact, that as far as possible the value of each vote cast shall be equal in electoral potency. In other words, "One vote one value" should be the principle upon which electoral power is distributed. Again, the suffrage qualification should be arranged so as to be fair to all, and any exclusions that are necessary should work equitably. The adoption of this second principle would naturally point to manhood suffrage; and for ourselves we should like to see "One man one vote" and "A vote for every white man" adopted as well as "One vote one value." We cannot hide from ourselves, however, that there is a momentous objection to universal suffrage in the case of the Transvaal. In the first place, no other South African Colony has adopted universal suffrage, and therefore its adoption by the Transvaal might lead to considerable difficulties in the case of South African union. The reason why universal suffrage has been rejected in Cape Colony provides another objection. It may be said generally that a property qualification has been adopted in that tiolony because that is the only effective way of excluding the semi- wild natives from the franchise without at the same time bringing in those difficult—nay, odious—questions of pedigree and colour to which we alluded last week. Practically every one is agreed that it would be madness to give the natives the suffrage en bloc ; but if the black man is not to have the suffrage, then it becomes necessary to distinguish between those who are black and those who are not. If, on the other hand, a property and education qualification is insisted upon, the bulk of the natives are not given the franchise, which they would certainly misuse, and yet the educated and property-holding native is not disfranchised. It should be mentioned in this context that as far as we know there is no English-speaking com- munity in which the qualification for the franchise is a. racial one and where colour disfranchises,—the reason being, no doubt, as we have noted above, the difficulties connected with proving pedigrees in a Registration Court.
But even if the principle of "One vote one value" is accepted, and a plan discovered which will make the suffrage qualification just to all, it must be noted that the peculiar way in which the population is distributed in the Transvaal renders it extremely difficult to get the opinions of the population justly reflected in the House of Representatives, and the Legislature made a political microcosm of the community. However equally seats are dis- tributed as regards the population of the electoral districts, the British majority cannot get a majority in the House equal to that which the population figures show that they have a right to obtain. The reason is clear. The population of the Transvaal is not homogeneous. The greater part of the British element is contracted into one area. But there are also a number of British people grouped in small communities in the country districts. These British groups are electorally impotent, while in the places where there are British majorities those majorities are, so to speak, too large. Unless, then, it should be possible to persuade the Colonists to adopt Lord Courtney's scheme of minority voting, there is no plan of distributing seats which will give the British population the number of representatives to which they are justly entitled. Under a system of minority voting they, no doubt, would get their exact preponderance, for, as Lord Courtney has pointed out, his scheme not merely protects minorities, but also gives majorities their just rights. It would, however, we fear, be impossible to get a Colonial population to adopt the minority system. That being so, the framers of the Constitution will in all probability only be able to give the British majority of voters a bare majority in the Legislature. The best that the British majority can hope for, in spite of their numerical preponderance in the country as a whole, is a majority of two or three in the Representa- tive Assembly. Putting aside all questions of the general safety of South Africa and the Empire, this is a most undesirable result. We cannot expect any community to be contented in which the majority are for Government purposes unable to carry out their will, or are even placed in a position of minority. In these circumstances, is there no safeguard which may be introduced into the Constitu- tion? We believe there is, and we would most earnestly impress upon the Government the need of considering it.
We hold that they should introduce into the Constitu- tion the plan adopted in Switzerland and in many States of America,—the plan of the Referendum or poll of the people. In order to prevent the possibility of the Trans- vaal, owing to the anomalous way in which the population is distributed, being controlled by a Legislature in which the will, not of the majority, but of the minority prevails, we suggest that it should be enacted that fundamental laws —that is, laws affecting the Constitution and laws dealing with certain matters of great moment—should be referred to a poll of the people before they become law. Among the laws which must be so referred would naturally be placed all enactments dealing with the suffrage or the redistribu- tion of seats, all laws affecting the relations between the various Colonies, and all laws imposing Protective or other duties. But besides these obligatory appeals to a poll of the people, we would place in the hands of the High Commissioner the right of referring to the people any Act which, in his opinion, did not represent the wish of the majority of the inhabitants. A system of reference of this kind would.be of high value in face of the impossi- bility of devising an electoral system which in the Transvaal will give their full and just rights to the majority.
The proposal we have made is in no case undemocratic, but, instead, secures the will of the people to the fullest degree. For ourselves, we should like to add to it, in the case of the Transvaal, the right which exists in Switzerland, and, we think, also in certain States in America,—that is, the right of the "Initiative." Under it a certain proportion of the electors may petition the executive power to sub- mit to the direct vote of the people a law dealing with a particular subject, and if the people accept that law it is at once added to the statute-book. Possibly, however, the proposal for the Initiative would be too strong a measure to be adopted by a Government so innately con- servative in many ways as the present, and therefore we do not urge it. We do, however, ask them not to reject the notion of the corrective of the Referendum for the Transvaal Constitution until they have examined that proposition with care. For all we know, they may already have it in their minds. If so, all the bettor; but at any rate we feel that we should be wanting in the discharge of a public duty if we did not lay it before them. How our suggestion would be viewed by the British section in the Transvaal we have no notion, nor have we cared to inquire. We do not recommend it as in any sense a pro- posal injurious to the Boers, but as a frankly democratic measure, and one which will secure what we desire, and what we hold that every true Liberal ought to desire,— that the will of the majority shall prevail.
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