THE SOUTH AFRICA. BILL.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPBOTATOR."]
Sin„—In your article in last week's issue you complain that those of us who opposed the South Africa Bill upon its second reading confined ourselves to technical criticism. I should probably not have spoken in the debate on the second reading, but should have reserved my remarks for Committee, had I not found that a division was to be taken, and that we should be called upon to vote aye or no upon a Bill which had not been recommended to to us by a single argument. I am myself in favour of confederation, and assuming, as I did in my remarks, that the whole House shared this view, my argument was of necessity technical, inasmuch
as it was obvious that the vote upon the second reading ought to turn upon the question of whether negotiations were sufficiently advanced to make it desirable that we should pass a Bill this year, and if so, whether that Bill should be of the vague character of the Bill before the House. Upon this point of the vagueness of the measure, I may assure you that when I asked whether the absence of definition of South Africa, and of all list of Colonies and States to be included in confederation, was intended to allow the possible annexation of Egypt, I was indulging in what I thought a harmless joke, which was taken so by the House, and which I had no conception would be taken seriously by the Press. As you assume that the Members who voted against the second reading of the Bill are opposed to the annexation of the Transvaal, let me add, as one of them, that I do not agree with Mr. Courtney in opposing the policy of that annexation, although I disapprove of the manner in which it has been carried out. The question at issue on the second reading of the Bill was, as it seems to me, not the annexation of the Transvaal, which will be discussed upon the Transvaal vote, and not the abstract desirability of Confederation, but only that of the wisdom of passing, at the present moment, without any declaration of policy, and without any explanation from the Government, such an undigested measure as that which has been set before u8.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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