Cabinet of South Africa

“ Section 96 of the new Constitution is deemed to contain the following additional subsections:
“ (3)
Ministers are accountable individually to the President and to the National Assembly for the administration of their portfolios, and all members of the Cabinet are correspondingly accountable collectively for the performance of the functions of the national government and for its policies. (4)
Ministers must administer their portfolios in accordance with the policy determined by the Cabinet. ”

“ No one recognised better than the Cabinet of the day under what an obligation they lay to the mercantile world which had seen them through the short but grave crisis in South Africa, nor did any men appreciate better than they the contract into which they had virtually if not technically entered, to recoup those whom their abrupt negotiations for peace had left in the lurch. ”

“ Whenever a Deputy Minister is absent or for any reason unable to exercise or perform any of the powers or functions of his or her office, the President may appoint any other Deputy Minister or any other person to act in the said Deputy Minister’s stead, either generally or in the exercise or performance of any specific power or function.
Composition and functioning of Cabinet in event of non-participation by parties
95. ”

“ But if the Dutch be thirsting in this fashion for our blood, people at home can rest confident in the fact that there will be no holding back upon the part of our men once the fun begins. Seldom has such a determined and ferocious spirit animated any British force as that one which is now stimulating the troops in South Africa. Every man is sick of the Cabinet's delay, but they find consolation in the fact that the slow movement of the Ministerial machine is undertaken to avoid any precipitation of the crisis before the forces to be engaged have arrived upon the scene. ”

“ The constitution creates for South Africa a union entirely different from that of the provinces of Canada or the States of the American Republic. The government is not federal, but unitary. The provinces become areas of local governments, with local elected councils to administer them, but the South-African Parliament reigns supreme. It is to know nothing of the nice division of jurisdiction set up by the American constitution and by the British North America Act. ”

“ Personal influence goes for more than all the defined policies of successive administrations, or excellent theories of Government. A Prince is of more weight than the best of official Governors, and it is not likely that in medieval ages, or even at later periods, such an appanage of the Crown, as we desire South Africa to become, would be unvisited by either the Sovereign, or someone of the Sovereign's family. The visit of their Royal Highnesses Prince Albert Victor, and Prince George of Wales was limited to a brief sojourn at Cape Town, and did not extend to the Colony in general. ”

“ Indeed it is obvious that not only the British and Dutch inhabitants of South Africa, but also all responsible politicians and competent publicists in Canada and Australia, are now of opinion that complete solutions of the three South African problems of primary importance—the settlement of the native question, agricultural development, and railway administration—can only be obtained through a Federal Parliament, a body which would combine a detailed knowledge of local conditions with the power of seeing each problem as a whole, and devising a general solution. ”

“ The point is well illustrated by looking at the composition of the convention, which, in its sessions at Durban, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein, put together the present constitution. South Africa, from its troubled history, has proved itself a land of strong men. But it was reserved for the recent convention to bring together within the compass of a single council-room the surviving leaders of the period of conflict to work together for the making of a united state. ”

“ In spite of all its hypocritical accusations, the British Government is perfectly well aware that, notwithstanding the unparalleled difficulties with which the Government and the Legislature have had to contend, the administration of the South African Republic is on a sound basis, and can, indeed, be favourably compared with that of other countries in a similar position. ”

“ No one will claim, no one ever has claimed, that the government of the South African Republic is perfect. Having regard to the extraordinary changes that have come over the country during the last ten years, it is really a marvel that the government is not much more imperfect than it is. The present position of the Transvaal executive has been not inaptly compared to the position of the crew of a collier brig who might suddenly find themselves in control of a first-class mail steamer. ”

“ It is perfectly true that the Imperial Government cannot divest itself of responsibility in this matter. We do not do so. I think that if we have yielded, as we have, on points of detail—on some points on which many of us feel very strongly—to the considered and deliberate judgment of South Africa, it has been because we thought it undesirable at this, the last, stage in the completion of an almost unprecedentedly difficult task to put forward anything that could be an obstacle to the successful working of the Bill. ”

“ While in itself acknowledging no single form of government as the only suitable form, and whilst acknowledging the form of government existing at present [the Bond] means that the aim of our national development must be a united South Africa under its own flag.
In the following year the Farmers’ Protection Association was amalgamated with the Bond, and the joint organization fell under the control of J. H. Hofmeyr, the leader of the Dutch party in Cape Colony. ”

“ In the present state of South Africa it is difficult to gauge the trend of public opinion. The most prevalent feeling amongst British and Dutch alike is probably one of dependence on the Imperial Government; and the best hope for the future lies in the establishment of a Federal Government in South Africa on similar lines to those of the Dominion Government of Canada and the Commonwealth Government of Australia. ”

“ Though there are few constitutions anywhere which give such unlimited power to the Legislature, the course of events—oft-recurring troubles of all sorts, native wars, internal dissensions, financial pressure, questions with the British Government—have made the President practically more important than the Legislature, and, in fact, the main force in the Republic. The Executive Council has exerted little power and commanded little deference, while the Volksraad has usually been guided by the President and has never taken the direction of affairs out of his hands. ”

“ Each of these nations, Australia and South Africa, when it was ready and in its own way, produced for itself a plan of common government. A Britisher in the highest administrative office in South Africa wrote in 1907: "It is a modern axiom of British policy that any attempt to manage the domestic affairs of a white population by a continuous exercise of the direct authority of the Imperial Parliament, in which the people concerned are not represented, is, save under very special circumstances, a certain {214} path to failure." ”

“ It seems evident that some of the greatest evils in the British government of South Africa have arisen from the frequent changes of Governors and Administrators there, concurrently with changes in the Government at home. There have been Governors under whose influence and control all sections of the people, including the natives, have had a measure of peace and good government. Such a Governor was Sir George Grey, of whose far-seeing provisions for the welfare of all classes many effects last to this day. ”

“ Sir Theophilus Shepstone was sent by the English government to report on the condition of affairs in the Transvaal. He came to the conclusion that the continued existence of the republic was dangerous to the welfare of ‘her majesty's subjects and possessions in South Africa,’ and in virtue of the power given to him formally annexed the state in April 1877. No resistance to this measure was made by the Boers. The president, Mr. Burgers, ordered the people to be loyal to their new ruler, and directed the state secretary to hand over the keys of the government offices to Sir Theophilus Shepstone. ”

“ There shall be an efficient, non-partisan, career-orientated public service broadly representative of the South African community, functioning on a basis of fairness and which shall serve all members of the public in an unbiased and impartial manner, and shall, in the exercise of its powers and in compliance with its duties, loyally execute the lawful policies of the government of the day in the performance of its administrative functions. ”

“ If I may venture to make a suggestion, the affairs of South Africa should be controlled by a Board or Council, like that which formerly governed India, composed of moderate members of both parties, with an admixture of men possessing practical knowledge of the country. I do not know if any such arrangement would be possible under our constitution, but the present system of government, by which the control of savage races fluctuates in obedience of every variation of English party politics, is most mischievous in its results. ”

“ In the case of a money bill rejected by the Senate a joint sitting to decide its fate may be held in the same session in which the Senate has failed to pass the bill. Every minister of state may sit and speak in either house, but can vote only in the house of which he is a member. Re-election is not necessary on the appointment of a member as a minister of state. Members of parliament are paid £400 a year, £3 being deducted from this allowance for every day's absence during the session.
A Supreme Court of Judicature for South Africa was created at the establishment of the Union. ”

“ If South Africa is to stay in the Empire it will have to be because the Empire will be made such that neither South Africa nor any other of the dominions would wish to leave it. For this, much has already been done. The liberation of the Transvaal and Orange River from the thraldom of their Crown Colony Government, and the frank acceptance of the Union Constitution by the British Government are the first steps in this direction. Meantime that future of South Africa, as of all the Empire, lies behind a veil. ”

“ By the letters patent of 1900 the High Commissioner is invested with the control of the South African Constabulary in the new colonies and the administration of the Central South African railways, and he is empowered to call together conferences of the self-governing colonies for the discussion of common problems. Here is already existing the administrative machinery of a federation. The rock on which many federal enterprises have split is the election of the supreme head, and in most systems it is the weakest point. But South Africa is saved this part of the problem. ”

“ I know that there is within this Congress a bipartisan commitment to work with the administration, to seek together the modification of policies that are in place right now so that we will at one and the same time develop initiatives that are truly consistent with American principles and values on the one hand, and that will also be equally consistent with American national interests in being identified with the cause of social justice within South Africa. ”

“ The Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1983 repealed most of the 1961 Act on 3 September 1984, and replaced it as South Africa's constitution. The unrepealed remainder of the 1961 Act was renamed, becoming the Provincial Government Act, 1961. ”

“ The love of local independence is strong in South Africa, but might be deferred to and appeased, as is being done in Australia, by appropriate constitutional provisions. So far, no fatal obstacle stands in the way; but a difficulty has been thought to arise from the fact that whereas Cape Colony, Natal, and the other British territories are part of the dominions of the British Crown, the Orange Free State is an independent Republic, and the Transvaal may be so when federation becomes a practical issue. ”

“ The one exception to this broad division, the one case of self-governing communities in which the majority of the inhabitants are not of European stock, is to be found in South Africa. The general difficulty of adjusting the relations of a higher and a lower race, serious under every kind of government, here presents itself in the special form of the construction of a political system which, while democratic as regards one of the races, cannot safely be made democratic as regards the other. ”