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Publications & Reports

Bleek comments on a lull in activity in Table Bay likely caused by last year's gale. Farmers plough, and tranquillity pervades. The Free State is growing into a power and continues pacification efforts. Beyond the Orange River, there is (agricultural?) progress that presently surpasses the Cape and Natal. However, this inland state will inevitably share its business with those between it and the sea. The current tree-planting initiative is of first-rate importance in so dry and bare a country. Parliment's adjournment until September aggravates the dullness. Many seats, like the one for Cape Town (House of Assembly), will need filling through by-elections once the new session begins. Parties prepared to spend several thousand pounds on their candidate are almost guaranteed success in a climate where a supermajority of voters are illiterate, susceptible to bribes (i.e. vote-buying/vote-selling), and commit to reductive issue voting. He accuses the late Mr Hare of this. The poor and illiterate would surely value beer (the material) over their political independence (the post-material). Despite his dissatisfaction, "a higher kind of franchise" is not sought. Bleek considers the literacy test approach. Radically reducing the number of electors (and eligible candidates), as seen with Britain's close boroughs, merely changed the form of bribery. He advocates no such limitation on electioneering districts. A literacy test is not a panacea. The dwindled electorate's votes would be weighted to compensate for the many disqualified. How can the public respect the electoral system if many lawgivers profit from their abuse of it, weakening its moral fibre? Separating the judicial and administrative functions of Civil Commissioners and Magistrates should be addressed in the most populated districts.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

28/06/1866

Two cut out columns of newsprint text, positioned vertically parallel, pasted onto a plus-sized A4 unlined sheet with visible warping. No title was subsequently handwritten onto the mount/paper backing.