South Africa, vol. II.

by Anthony Trollope

The Legislature of the Orange Republic consists, as I have said, of a single House called the Volksraad, which is elected for four years, of which one half goes out at the end of every two years, so that the change is not made all at once as with us, half the House being dissolved at the end of one period of two years, and half at the end of another. The members are paid 20s. a day while the House is sitting. The House elects its own Speaker, at the right hand of whom the President has a chair. This he may occupy or not as he pleases; but when he is not there it is expected that his place shall be filled by the Government Secretary. The President can speak when he likes but cannot vote. The House can, if it please, desire him to withdraw, but, I was informed, had never yet exercised its privilege in this respect.

The President is elected for a term of five years and may, under the present Constitution, be re-elected for any number of terms. The present President has now nearly served his third term, and will no doubt be re-elected next year. But there is a bill now before the Volksraad by which the renewal of the President’s term is to be confined to a single reappointment. One re-election only will be allowed. This change has received all the sanction which one Session can give it. The period of the term is also to be curtailed from five to four years. It is necessary however that such a change in the Constitution shall be passed by the House in three consecutive Sessions, and on each occasion by a three-fourth majority. It is understood also that the bill if passed will not debar the existing President from one re-election after the change. President Brand therefore will be enabled to serve for five terms, and should he live to do so will thus have been the Head of the Executive of the Free State for a period of twenty-four years,—which is much longer than the average reign of hereditary monarchs. His last term will in this case have been shortened one year by the new law. It would be I think impossible to overrate the value of his services to the country which adopted him. He was a member of Assembly in the Cape Colony when he was elected, of which House his father was then Speaker. A better choice could hardly have been made. It is to his patience, his good sense, his exact appreciation of both the highness and the lowness of the place which he has been called on to occupy, that the Republic has owed its security. I have expressed an opinion as to the qualifications of President Burgers for a similar position. It is because President Brand has been exactly the reverse of President Burgers, that he is now trusted by the Volksraad and loved by the people. It would be hard to find a case in which a man has shewn himself better able to suit himself to peculiar duties than has been done by the President of this little Republic.

The right of voting in the Free State belongs to the burghers, and the burghers are as follows;—

1.	All white male persons born in the State.
2.	All white male persons who have resided one year in the State, and are registered owners of property to the value of £150.
3.	All white male persons who have lived for three consecutive years in the State.

Those however who are included in the 2nd and 3rd clauses will not be recognized as burghers unless they produce to the State President a certificate of good conduct from the authorities of their last place of abode and a written promise of allegiance to the State.

Burghers who have attained the age of 16, and all who at a later age shall have acquired citizenship are bound to enrol themselves under their respective field-cornets and to be liable to burgher duty,—which means fighting,—till they be 60 years old.

Burghers of 18 are entitled to vote for Field Cornets and Field Commandants. To vote for a member of the Volksraad or for the President a burgher must be 21, must have been born in the State,—when no property qualification is necessary,—or must be the registered owner of property to the value of £150, or be the lessor of a property worth £36 per annum; or have a yearly income of £200, or possess moveable property worth £300.

From this it will be seen that the parliamentary system of the Republic is protected from a supposed evil by a measure of precaution which would be altogether inadmissible in any Constitution requiring the sanction of the British Crown. No coloured person can vote for a Member of Parliament. However expedient it may be thought by Englishmen to exclude Kafirs or Zulus from voting till such changes shall have been made in their habits as to make them fit for the privilege, the restrictions made for that purpose must with us be common both to the coloured and to the white population. We all feel that no class legislation as to the privilege of voting should be adopted and that in giving or withholding qualification no allusion should be made to race or colour. But the Dutch of the Free State have no such scruple. They at once proclaim that this privilege shall be confined to those in whose veins European blood runs pure. I will here say nothing as to the comparative merits of British latitude or of Dutch restraint, but I will ask my readers to consider whether it be probable that a people who have not scrupled to make for themselves such a law of exclusion will willingly join themselves to a nationality which is absolutely and vehemently opposed to any exclusion based on colour.

In the Free State the executive power is in the hands of the President in which he is assisted by a Council of five, of whom two are official. There is now a bench of three judges who go circuit, and there is a magistrate or Landroost sitting in each of the thirteen districts and deciding both civil and criminal cases to a certain extent. The religion and education of the State will both require a few words from me, but they will come better when I am speaking of Bloemfontein, the capital.

The Revenue of the country is something over £100,000 a year, and the expenditure has for many years been kept within the Revenue. It has been very fluctuating, having sunk below £60,000 in 1859 when the war with the Basutos had crippled all the industries of the country and had forced the burghers to spend their time in fighting instead of cultivating their lands and looking after their sheep. There is nothing, however, that the Boer hates so much as debt, and the Boer of the Volksraad has been very careful to free his country from that incubus.