On Thursday evening the House dealt with the South Africa
Bill in Committee, and after a debate in which Mr Asquith, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Harold Cox, Mr. Keir Hardie, and Colonel Seely took part, the measure was passed through without amendment. The Motion for the third reading was then made. Mr. Asquith in submitting this Motion took credit for the fact that the Bill, consisting of over a hundred and fifty clauses and a very complicated schedule, had, "after the most careful consideration of the House," been passed with no alteration. This did not show, however, that there was unanimity as to the clauses which dealt with the eligibility of natives for the Legislature. The House had exercised not only restraint of expression, but reserve of judgment, in regard to matters of this kind, because it desired that this great experiment of establishing self-government in South Africa should start in complete accordance with the ideas of our fellow-citizens there, which they have come to deliberately and after long consideration. Speaking for himself and the Government, the Prime Minister expressed not only the hope,
but the expectation, that the views on the colour question which had been so strongly expressed in the House, and practically without any dissent, would be sympathetically ' considered in South Africa.
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