The Beginning of Responsible Government
The Cape Colony was brought under responsible government in 1872. Under its previous political system, the government ministers of the Cape reported to the British colonial Governor of Cape Colony, and not to the locally-elected Cape Parliament. This changed in 1872 when local politician John Molteno - with the backing of Governor Henry Barkly - instituted responsible government, making ministers responsible to Parliament and becoming the Cape's first Prime Minister. The Cape remained under responsible government until 1910, when it became the Cape Province within the new Union of South Africa. An important point to be made about the political system of the Cape under responsible government, was that it was the only state of southern Africa to have a non-racial system of voting. Later however - following the Act of Union of 1910 to form the Union of South Africa - this multi-racial universal suffrage was steadily eroded, and eventually abolished by the Apartheid government in 1948.
Read more about this topic: History Of Cape Colony From 1870 To 1899
Famous quotes containing the words beginning, responsible and/or government:
“Learning starts with failure; the first failure is the beginning of education.”
—John Hersey (1914–1993)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Every expansion of government in business means that government in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation’s press and platform. Free speech does not live many hours after free industry and free commerce die.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)