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Publications & Reports

Bleek writes that despite Wodehouse's eloquence, his speech failed to understand the position of the Cape colonists concerning the forced transfer of the financial imperial burden of frontier defence, where a "Kafir war" may arise. The unpopularity of colonial expenditure and affairs with the British public may soon cause the Queen's troops to withdraw. Wodehouse's administration has side-stepped the Colonial Legislature by appealing directly to the Imperial Parliament for a bill overriding (undermining) the former's decision without means for appeal. Such behaviour necessitates a Responsible Government. Entrusting frontier affairs to an unaccountable Governor-cum-High Commissioner would achieve no imperial intervention, as the Home Government already intends to saddle the Cape Colony with this burden. Costs will be hard to predict as the Cape has no agency in frontier affairs. Wodehouse would fail in one regard if he transferred control to the Cape Legislature and may rightly ask how far Responsible Government could go in a territory so large and demographically diverse.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

29/04/1865

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.