as sure to
create in time an intolerable situation, and was an unwise and dangerous
thing. (The registration of 1905 showed that there were over 23,000
coloured voters in the colony.) The commission proposed separate voting
by natives only for a fixed number of members of the legislature--the
plan adopted in New Zealand with the Maori voters. The privileged
position of the Cape native was seen to be an obstacle to the federation
of South Africa. The discussion which followed, based partly on the
reports that the ministry contemplated disfranchising the natives, led,
however, to no immediate results.

Another disturbing factor in connexion with native affairs was the
revolt of the Hottentots and Hereros in German South-West Africa (q.v.).
In 1904 and the following years large numbers of refugees, including
some of the most important chiefs, fled into British territory, and
charges were made in Germany that sufficient control over these refugees
was not exercised by the Cape government. This trouble, however, came to
an end in September 1907. In that month Morenga, a chief who had been
interned by the colonial authorities, but had escaped and recommenced
hostilities against the Germans, was once more on the British side of
the frontier and, refusing to surrender, was pursued by the Cape Mounted
Police and killed after a smart action. The revolt in the German
protectorate had been, nearly a year before the death of Morenga, the
indirect occasion of a "Boer raid" into Cape Colony. In November 1906 a
small party of Transvaal Boers, who had been employed by the Germans
against the Hottentots, entered the colony under the leadership of a man
named Ferreira, and began raiding farms and forcibly enrolling recruits.
Within a week the filibusters were all captured. Ferreira and four
companions were tried for murder and convicted, February 1907, the death
sentences being commuted to terms of penal servitude.

As the result of an inter-colonial conference held in Pietermaritzburg
in the early months of 1906, a new customs convention of a strongly
protective character came into force on the 1st of June of that year. At
the same time the rebate on goods from Great Britain and reciprocating
colonies was increased. The session of parliament which sanctioned this
change was notable for the attention devoted to irrigation and railway
schemes. But one important measure of a political character was passed
in 1906, namely an amnesty act. Un