Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/526

 182 THE BRITISH EMPIRE: — CAPE OF GOOD HOPE

Bathoeii, rules his own people as formerly, under the protection of tlie Queen, who is represented by a Resident Commissioner with assistants, acting under the High Commissioner. The natives pay a hut tax, collected, for the present at least, by the chiefs. No licences for the sale of spirits are granted or renewed. There is a force of mounted police for the main- tenance of order. Outside the boundaries laid down, the chiefs, under cer- tain regulations, continue to have the hunting rights they formerly possessed. The natives in the territory are peaceable, cattle-rearing and agriculture being the chief industries. In the year 1896-7 the Protectorate suffered severely from rinderpest, drought, scarcity, and sickness. In 1897 the mounted police numbered 127 men, including 12 officers. The native police numbered 60. For the year 1896-97 the revenue amounted to 47,511/., the amount from customs being 8, 693Z. ; the expenditure reached 88,448/., the cost of the police being 40,102/., while 24,152/, was expended for native relief, and 4,707/. for extra police and for burning or l)urying the carcases of cattle which had died of rinderpest.

The telegraph line from the Cape to Mafeking has been extended to Fort Salisbury in Mashonaland, and the railway is now open for traffic to Buluwayo. High Commissioner, Sir Alfred Milner, K.C. B. Resident Commissioner, Major H. J. Goold Adams, C.B.

Annual Report on the Protectorate. London.

Bechuanaland. Commission and Instructions to Major-General Sir Charles Warren, K.C.M.G., as Special Commissioner to Bechuanaland. London, 1884, and subsequent Blue Books.

Hepburn (J. D,), Twenty Years in Khama's Country. London, 1895.

Johnston (Sir Harrv), The Colonisation of Africa, Cambridge, 1899.

Lloyd (E.), Three African Chiefs. London, 1895.

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

(Cape Colony.) Constitution and Government. The form of government of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope was originally established by Order in Council of the 11th of March, 1853. By Act 28 Vict. c. 5, and Colonial Act III. of 1865, which provided for the incorporation of British Kaffraria with the colony, various changes were made, and further changes of an important nature by the ' Constitution Ordinance Amend- ment Act,' passed by the colonial legislature in 1872, providing for ' the introduction of the system of executive administration commonly called Responsible Government.' The Constitution formed under these various Acts vests the executive in the Governor and an Executive Council, composed of certain office holders appointed by the Crown. The legislative power rests with a Legislative Council of 23 members elected for seven years, presided over ex officio by the Chief Justice ; and a House of As- sembly of 79 members, elected for five years, representing the country districts and towns of the colony. The colony is divided into seven electorate provinces each electing 3 members to the Legislative Council, there being an additional one for Griqualand West, and one for British Bechuanaland, A redistribution