appear in that of 1889, and are appointed for life. The High Court consists of a chief justice and four puisne judges.

The old Grondwet also contained some curious details relating to civil administration (which was primarily entrusted to the judicial officers, supported by the commandants and field cornets), and the revenue of the State, which was intended to be drawn chiefly from fees and licences, the people having little disposition to be directly taxed. The farm tax was not to exceed forty dollars, and the poll-tax, payable by persons without or with only one farm, was fixed at five dollars annually. Five dollars was the payment allowed to each member of the Volksraad for each day's attendance. Most of these provisions have disappeared from the instrument of 1889. The salary of the President of the Council, which had been fixed at 5,333 dollars, 2 schellings, and 4 stuivers, to be increased as the revenue increased, now amounts to £7,000 sterling ($35,000) per annum, besides allowances.

The most considerable change made since 1889 was the establishment, in 1890, of a chamber called the Second Volksraad, which is elected on a more liberal basis than the First Volksraad, persons who have resided in the country for two years, have taken an oath of allegiance and have complied with divers other requirements, being admissible as voters. This assembly, however, enjoys little real power, for its competency is confined to some specified matters, and to such others as the First Volksraad may refer to it; and its acts may be overruled by the First Raad, whereas the Second Raad has no power of passing upon the resolutions or

laws enacted by the First Raad. The Second Volksraad is, therefore, not a second chamber in the ordinary sense of the term, such as the Senate in American States or the House of Lords in England, but an appendage to the old popular House. It was never intended to exercise much power, and was, in fact, nothing more than a concession, more apparent than real, to the demands of the Uitlanders, or recent immigrants excluded from citizenship.

A few general observations may be made on this Constitution before we proceed to examine its legal character and effect.

It was in its older form a crude, untechnical document, showing little trace on the part of those who drafted it either of legal skill or of a knowledge of other constitutions. The language was often vague, and many of the provisions went into details ill-fitted for a fundamental law.

Although enacted by and for a pure democracy, it was based on inequality-inequality of whites and blacks, inequality of religious creeds. Not only was the Dutch Reformed Church declared to be established and endowed by the State, but Roman Catholic churches were forbidden to exist, and no Roman Catholic nor Jew nor Protestant of any other than the Dutch Reformed Church was eligible to the presidency, or to membership of the legislature or executive council. In its improved shape (1889) some of these faults have been corrected, and in particular the religious restrictions were reduced to a requirement that the President, the Secretary of State, the Landrosts and the members of the Volksraad should belong to a Protestant Church,

The door, however, remained barred against persons of colour.

It contained and still contains little in the nature of a Bill of Rights, partly perhaps from an oversight on the part of its draftsmen, but partly also owing to the assumption-which the early history of the republic amply verified that the government would be a weak one, unable to encroach upon the rights of private citizens.

The first legal question which arises upon an exami nation of this Constitution relates to its stability and permanence. Is it a Rigid or a Flexible Constitution? That is to say, can it, like the constitution of the Orange Free State and that of the United States, be altered only in some specially prescribed fashion? Or may it be altered by the ordinary legislature in the ordinary way, like any other part of the law?

In favour of the former alternative, that the constitution is a Rigid one, appeal has been made not only to the name Grondwet (Ground-law), but, which is of more consequence, to some of its language. The general declarations of the power of the people, the form in which they entrust power to the legislature, to the Executive Council, and to the judiciary respectively (as well as to the military authority), look as if meant to constitute a triad of authorities, similar to that created by the constitutions of American States, no one of which authorities may trespass on the province of the others. Some things seem intended to be secured against any alteration by the legislature, e.g., article 9 declares that 'the people will not allow of any equality between coloured and white inhabitants'; article II declares that 'the people reserve to themselves the exclusive Gg

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right of protecting and defending the independence and inviolability of Church and State, according to the laws.'

On the other hand, it is argued that the constitution must be deemed to be a Flexible one, because it did not in its original form, and does not now, contain any provision whereby it may be altered, otherwise than by the regular legislature of the country acting according to its ordinary legislative methods. One cannot suppose that no change was intended ever to be made in the Grondwet. That supposition would be absurd in view of the very minute provisions on some trivial subjects which it contains. No distinction is drawn, by the terms of the instrument, between these minutiae and the provisions of a more general and apparently permanent nature. Ergo, all must be alterable, and alterable by the only legislative authority, that is to say, the Volksraad. This view, moreover, is the view which the legislature has in fact taken, and in which the people have certainly acquiesced. Some changes have been made-such as the admission to the electoral franchise of persons not belonging to the Dutch Reformed Church, the creation of a new supreme court, and the establishment of a Second Volksraad-which are not consistent with the Grondwet, but whose validity has not been contested.

The difficulty which arises from the fact that, whereas the framers of the Grondwet appear to have desired to make parts of their work fundamental and unchangeable, they have nevertheless drawn no distinction between those parts and the rest, and have provided no specific security against the heedless change of the weightiest parts, may be explained by noting that they

were not skilled jurists or politicians, alive to the delicacy of the task they had undertaken. They expected that the Volksraad would continue to be of the same mind as they were then, and would respect what they considered fundamental; they relied on the general opinion of the nation. They had, moreover, provided a method whereby the nation should always have an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon legislation, namely, the provision (§ 12) that the people should have a period of three months within which to 'intimate to the Volksraad their views on any proposed law,' it being assumed that the Volksraad would obey any such intimation, although no means is provided for securing that it will do so.

This provision has given rise to a curious question. It excepts 'those laws which admit of no delay.' Now the Volksraad has in fact neglected the general provision, and, instead of allowing the three months' period, has frequently hastily passed enactments upon which the people have had no opportunity of expressing their opinion. Such enactments, which have in some instances purported to alter parts of the Grondwet itself, are called 'resolutions' (besluite) as opposed to laws; and when objection has been taken to this mode of legislation, these resolutions seem to have been usually justified on the ground of urgency, although in fact many of them, if important, could hardly be called urgent. They have been treated as equally binding with laws passed in accordance with the provisions of the Grondwet (for up to 1895 article 12 seems not to have been formally altered); and it is only recently that their validity has been seriously questioned in the courts.

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