THE TRUE TEMPER OF EMPIRE. 



285 



Volksraad of a Proclamation by Queen Victoria in these terms : 

 " There shall not in the eye of the law be any distinction of 

 persons, or disqualification of colour, origin, language or creed ; 

 but the protection of the law in letter and in substance shall be 

 extended to all alike." The Proclamation was published by the 

 Governor on May 12th and on August 8th, the conditions con- 

 tained in it were formally agreed to and accepted. 



This Proclamation, following closely the abolition of slavery, 

 has always been considered by the coloured races as the Magna 

 Charta of their liberties in Africa. 



In Asia, the Government of India Act, 1833, declared that 

 "no person by reason of his birth, creed or colour shall be 

 disqualified from holding any office," and the Directors of the 

 East India Company in transmitting it to their Agents in India, 

 sent out elaborate instructions in order that " its full spirit and 

 intention might be transfused through the whole system of 

 administration." After declaring that they understood the 

 meaning of the enactment to be that there should be " no- 

 governing caste in India ; that whatever other tests or qualifi- 

 cations might be adopted, distinctions of race or religion should 

 not be of the number ; that no subject of the king, whether of 

 Indian, or British or mixed descent should be excluded from 

 any post in the covenanted or uncovenanted service," they 

 declared that " out of this there arises a powerful argument for 

 the promotion of every design tending to the improvement of 

 the natives, whether by conferring on them the advantages of 

 education or by diffusion among them the treasures of science, 

 knowledge and moral culture." If the Mutiny of 1857 arrested 

 for a moment the confidence of the Imperial Parliament in the 

 policy of 1833, nothing in the history of the Empire is more 

 remarkable than the rapidity with which it reasserted itself in 

 the Proclamation of Queen Victoria to the princes and peoples 

 of India. Lord Morley has recently called attention to the 

 retention of the title " Defender of the Faith " in this memorable 

 instrument. It was urged that in translation, it would convey 

 to the Indian mind the idea of Defender of a creed antagonistic 

 to the creeds of the country, and Lord Derby regarded it as a 

 doubtful title " considering its origin." Apart from the 

 significance of the title in this Proclamation, it is of really- 

 Imperial importance to remember the interpretations to which 

 it has accommodated itself. Conferred on Henry VIII. by the 

 Pope in 1521 in recognition of his defence of the Catholic 

 Church against the doctrine of Protestantism, within a few 

 years that sovereign had' deserted from the service of the 



