28. That the diffusion of wealth, comfort, intelligence, and virtue, and the equalization of opportunity are prime objects of political and industrial institutions.

29. That the government should be kept close to the people through short terms for legislators, direct nominations and a ballot that favors individual thought and judgment in voting, good civil service rules, and the use of the referendum in one or another of its many forms.

30. That the government is simply the people's agent to manage any business or do any act for the public good.

Every one of these principles has been established as the result of practical efforts to deal with actual problems and existing conditions. Confronted with specific difficulties and dangers, an earnest, open-minded, common-sense, true-hearted people have sought for remedies, and naturally found them in laws and institutions based on principles that accord with the public good. Moving in this way from a concrete evil to its logical remedy, progress has not been the carrying out of a preconceived programme, but a series of adaptations to present need, the recognition of the principles on which the adaptations rest, accompanying or following, but rarely much preceding, the original application. . .

After the vast continent of Australia and the neighboring island of Tasmania had been laid out into six separate colonies, each with its own constitution and system of government, it was only natural that they should finally be federated into a single union. Five of these colonies, by legislative enactment and direct vote of the people, expressed their desire for a federal union, and accordingly the British Parliament, in July, 1900, passed a law constituting a commonwealth of five colonies, and providing at the same time for the admission of the sixth, Western Australia, which shortly afterwards acceded to the

21. An

he constitu

ion of the Australian Commonwealth

63 & 64 Vict., Ch. 12. An act to constitute the Commonwealth

Whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South xtract from Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the constitution hereby established; and whereas it is expedient to provide for the admission into the Commonwealth of other Australasian colonies and possessions of the queen: be it therefore enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

The governor eneral

1. The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Federal Parliament, which shall consist of the queen, a Senate, and a House of Representatives, and which is hereinafter called "The Parliament," or The Parliament of the Commonwealth."

ee

2. A governor general appointed by the queen shall be her Majesty's representative in the Commonwealth, and shall have and may exercise in the Commonwealth during the queen's pleasure, but subject to this constitution, such powers and functions of the queen as her Majesty may be pleased to assign to him. . . .

5. The governor general may appoint such times for holding the sessions of the Parliament as he thinks fit, and may also from time to time, by proclamation or otherwise, prorogue the Parliament, and may in like manner dissolve the House of Representatives.

After any general election the Parliament shall be summoned to meet not later than thirty days after the day appointed for the return of the writs.

The Parliament shall be summoned to meet not later than six months after the establishment of the Commonwealth.

6. There shall be a session of the Parliament once at least in every year, so that twelve months shall not intervene between

the last sitting of the Parliament in one session and its first sitting in the next session. ..

7. The Senate shall be composed of senators for each State, The Se directly chosen by the people of the State, voting, until the Parliament otherwise provides, as one electorate.

But until the Parliament of the Commonwealth otherwise provides, the Parliament of the State of Queensland, if that State be an original State, may make laws dividing the State into divisions and determining the number of senators to be chosen for each division, and, in the absence of such provision, the State shall be one electorate.

Until the Parliament otherwise provides there shall be six senators for each original State. The Parliament may make laws increasing or diminishing the number of senators for each State, but so that equal representation of the several original States shall be maintained, and that no original State shall have less than six senators.

The senators shall be chosen for a term of six years, and the names of the senators chosen for each State shall be certified by the governor to the governor general.

tives

24. The House of Representatives shall be composed of The H members directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth, Repres and the number of such members shall be, as nearly as practicable, twice the number of the senators.

Section 91. Growth of the British Empire in Africa

During the war with Napoleon, Great Britain seized Cape Colony, then in the possession of his allies, the Dutch, and after a few years the English government in South Africa came into collision with the sturdy Boers, as the Dutch farmers were called. Resenting all interference in their affairs, the Dutch migrated north and eastward beyond the Orange and Vaal rivers, where they founded two little States, the Orange River Colony and the

Transvaal Colony In 1852 Great Britain acknowledged

e. British

clamation nexing the ansvaal

ublic

77)

ny inde

the independence of the Boers in the Transvaal, later
known as The South African Republic, and two years
later the independence of the Orange River Colony,
which became known as the Orange Free State. But
nevertheless, some thirty years later, in April, 1887,
Great Britain formally annexed the Transvaal and
issued the following proclamation setting forth the
reason for this action.

Proclamation by his Excellency Sir Theophilus Shepstone,
Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St.
Michael and St. George, her Majesty's Special Commis-
sioner for certain purposes in South Africa:

Whereas at a meeting held on the 16th day of January, in
the year
of our Lord 1852, at the Sand River, between her
Majesty's assistant commissioners, Major Hogge and C. M.
Owen, Esquire, on the one part, and a deputation from the
emigrant farmers then residing north of the Vaal River, at the
head of which was Commandant General A. W. J. Pretorius,
on the other part, the said her Majesty's assistant commis-
sioners did guarantee in the fullest manner on the part of
the British government to the emigrant farmers north of the
Vaal River, the right to manage their own affairs and to gov-
ern themselves according to their own laws, without any inter-
ference on the part of the British government."

ee

And whereas the evident objects and inciting motives of dence was the assistant commissioners in granting such guarantee or permission to persons who were her Majesty's subjects were

nted in

2

९९

to promote peace, free trade, and friendly intercourse" with and among the inhabitants of the Transvaal, in the hope and belief that the territory which a few years afterwards, namely in February, 1858, became known by the style and title of "The South African Republic," would become a flourishing and self-sustaining State, a source of strength and security to neighboring European communities, and a point from which Christianity and civilization might rapidly spread towards central Africa.

is weak

And whereas the hopes and expectations upon which this Transvaa mutual compact was reasonably and honorably founded have governme been disappointed, and the circumstances as set forth more at length in my address to the people, of to-day's date, hereunto attached, show that increasing weakness in the State itself on the one side, and more than corresponding growth of real strength and confidence among the native tribes on the other, have produced their natural and inevitable consequences. .

warlike

And whereas the ravaging of an adjoining friendly State by There is warlike savage tribes cannot for a moment be contemplated by danger fr her Majesty's government without the most earnest and pain- natives ful solicitude, both on account of the miseries which such an event must inflict upon the inhabitants of the Transvaal, and because of the peril and insecurity to which it would expose her Majesty's possessions and subjects in South Africa, and seeing that the circumstances of the case have, from the inherent weakness of the country already touched upon, become so grave that neither this country nor the British colonies in South Africa can be saved from the most calamitous circumstances except by the extension over this State of her Majesty's authority and protection, by means of which alone oneness of purpose and action can be secured, and a fair prospect of peace and prosperity in the future be established.

Transvaa

And whereas I have been satisfied by numerous addresses, Many inh memorials, and letters which I have received, and by the ants of th abundant assurances which personal intercourse has given me, implore that a large proportion of the inhabitants of the Transvaal see, protection in a clearer and stronger light than I am able to describe them, the urgency and imminence of the circumstances by which they are surrounded, the ruined condition of the country, and the absence within it of any element capable of rescuing it from its depressed and afflicted state, and therefore earnestly desire the establishment within and over it of her Majesty's authority and rule; and whereas the government has been unable to point out or devise any means by which the country can save itself.

...