SOUTH AFRICA FEDERATION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 73, 22 April 1909, Page 2

SOUTH AFRICA FEDERATION

NATAL UNDECIDED. \ Durban, April 20. '. The Assembly at Pictermaritzburg f . read a second time a Bill providing for \ the referendum, whether or not Natal J shall enter the union. A meeting in ' the Town Hall at Durban urged that no further steps regarding the union be Jj [ taken until the Mozambique agreement 1 is either abrogated or modified. , J MAIN FEATURES OF THE UNION. | The main features of the draft conjti- ji tution are:— .;< Union of the four colonies, which * are to he known as the Provinces of \ the Cape, the Trausvaal, Natal, and J Orange Rive r Colony. * A Governor General appointed by the \ Crown at a salary of £IO,OOO a year. A Senate composed of forty members. .4 eight of whom are to Tie nominated by the Governor-General in Council, and the remainder elected,—in the first in- J stance by the Provincial Parliaments, £ and subsequently by the Provincial j Councils. 1

I A House of Assembly of 121 membert elected and distributed on the ba«i* of population—The Cape 51, Transvaal 1 30. Xntal 17, Orange Riwr 17. J The Senate and Assembly will sit to- 1 gcther and vote on a system of propor- . tional representation. 1 English and Dutch to be the official * languages and to have equal privileges, j The existing colonial franchises to be -j retained ualvis Parliament othetwiat j provides. "

Railways, ports and harbors to bo vested in three Commissioaers and • Cabinet Minister.

The debts of the existing colonies to be taken over by the Union. J he siaine of the Union is to be simply South Africa. r *'