But Mr. Lyttelton’s plan did not stop there.  Side by side with this basis of voters, he had an artificial franchise of L100 annual value.  That is a very much lower qualification in South Africa, than it would be in this country, and I do not think that the franchise which Mr. Lyttelton proposed could be called an undemocratic franchise, albeit that it was an artificial franchise, because it yielded 89,000 voters out of a population of 300,000, and that is a much more fertile franchise, even after making allowance for the abnormal conditions of a new country, than we have in this country or than is the case in some American and European States.  So that I do not accuse Mr. Lyttelton of having formulated an undemocratic franchise, but taking these two points together—­the unusual basis of distribution with the apparently artificial franchise—­acting and reacting, as they must have done, one upon the other—­there was sufficient ground to favour the suspicion, at any rate, that something was intended in the nature of a dodge, in the nature of a trick, artificially to depress the balance in one direction and to tilt it in the other.

In dealing with nationalities, nothing is more fatal than a dodge.  Wrongs will be forgiven, sufferings and losses will be forgiven or forgotten, battles will be remembered only as they recall the martial virtues of the combatants; but anything like chicane, anything like a trick, will always rankle.  The Government are concerned in South Africa not only to do what is fair, but to do what South Africa will accept as fair.  They are concerned not merely to choose a balance which will deal evenly between the races, but one which will secure the acceptance of both races.

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We meet unjust charges in good heart.  The permanence and security of British sovereignty in South Africa is not a matter of indifference to his Majesty’s Ministers.  Surely no honourable Member believes that we could wish to cheat the British race in the Transvaal of any numerical preponderance which may properly belong to them.  Equally with our political opponents we desire to see the maintenance of British supremacy in South Africa.  But we seek to secure it by a different method.  There is a profound difference between the schools of thought which exist upon South African politics in this House.  We think that British authority in South Africa has got to stand on two legs.  You have laboured for ten years to make it stand on one.  We on this side know that if British dominion is to endure in South Africa it must endure with the assent of the Dutch, as well as of the British.  We think that the position of the Crown in South Africa, and let me add the position of Agents and Ministers of the Crown in South Africa, should be just as much above and remote from racial feuds, as the position of the Crown in this country is above our Party politics.  We do not seek to pit one race against the other in the hope of profiting from the quarrel.  We hope to build upon the reconciliation and not upon the rivalry of races.  We hope that it may be our fortune so to dispose of affairs that these two valiant, strong races may dwell together side by side in peace and amity under the shelter of an equal flag.