Knaplund—A Study in British Colonial Policy 
9 
Sir Henry Barkly to be presented before the people of South 
Africa.^® 
It met a fate similar to that of the proposal for a conference. 
The Cape saw in it another attempt to govern the colonies from 
Downing Street; Natal was dissatisfied; and even the high com¬ 
missioner subjected the measure to severe criticism. In the 
republics the reception appeared decidedly hostile. The Orange 
Free State could not ‘ ‘ accede to a union by which this State would 
sacrifice its independence”; and the Volksraad of the South Afri¬ 
can Republic rejected the bill.^^ 
Suspecting Barkly of being too much under the influence of 
the Cape ministry Lord Carnarvon replaced him with Sir Bartle 
Frere, who received definite instructions to obtain a confederation 
of the various colonies and states.^® To further this the Transvaal 
was annexed/^ and the amended Draft Bill was introduced in Par¬ 
liament, where it met with general approval, and upon receiving 
the Queen’s assent it became the South African Act, 1877 
All in vain. Natal favored the convening of a conference to 
discuss the question, but the Cape legislature remained obdurate. 
The annexation of the Transvaal had increased the hostility 
with which the Dutch, both in the English colonies and in the 
Orange Free State, regarded this purely English project.^^ With 
the uprising in and the retrocession of the Transvaal the cause 
of confederation became entirely hopeless. In August, 1882, the 
South African Act expired. 
Lord Carnarvon’s persistent attempt at federating the sub¬ 
continent throws interesting sidelights upon Britain’s attitude 
towards the dependencies and upon the colonial policy of Dis¬ 
raeli’s Ministry. One discerns a tendency to revive the paternal¬ 
istic methods of “Mr. Mother Country” of the pre-Durham-Buller 
period and, in addition, a certain un-English faith in legal form¬ 
ulas. Federation had triumphed in Germany and proved benefi¬ 
cial to Canada, therefore it ought to be adopted in South Africa. 
Carnarvon to Barkly, Dec. 14, 1876. P.P., 1877, LX, cd. 1732, pp. 20-29. 
pp. 32-36, 41-43; 1878, LV, cd. 1980, pp. 7-9, 18; Cana, South Africa, p. 80. 
41) Frere was in the opinion of Carnarvon, “The statesman . . . most capable of 
carrying my scheme of confederation into effect . . Carnarvon to Frere, Oct, 13, 
1876. John Martineau, The Life and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Sir 
Bartle Frere (2 Vols., London, 1895), II, p. 162. 
J. A. Fronde, Oceana (London, 1886), p. 53. 
*2 P.P., 1877, VI, “House of Lords Bill, 271.” For the changes in the original 
Draft Bill see ibid., XLX, cd. 1732, pp. 43—52. 
Life of Molteno, II, pp. 364, 427, 428. 
