Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa from 1873 to 1884, Volume 1 (1919).djvu/132

112 History of the Cape Colojiy. [1878 by the necessity of acting only by the advice of ministers ? It has been said that the secretary of state for the colonies «was of the same opinion in this matter as the governor himself, and this was made known to parlia- ment before the close of the debate, the tone of which was thereafter affected by it. Mr. Molteno was thus contending for the full privileges of responsible govern- ment, which, according to Sir Michael Hicks Beach's decision, the colony did not possess at the time, and which it only acquired when the imperial troops were withdrawn. In such a case, the position of the late ministry was hopeless. As for the appointment of Mr. Griffith as commandant- general of the colonial forces, Mr. Molteno maintained that he had consulted the governor, who did not refuse to give his consent, and that two days subsequently, when it was proposed to invest Mr. Griffith with the order of St. Michael and St. George, he suggested to his Excellency that the mvestiture should be delayed until the appointment was gazetted, which was agreed to. He contended therefore that his Excellency was a party to the appointment, and was fully cognisant of all that was going on. Mr. Merriman maintained that he had been forced by circumstances to occupy the position of director of opera- tions in the field, and that the governor had been a party to his taking that duty upon him. Mr. Stockenstrom stated that no appointment of im- portance had been made without the governor's sanction. It was not usual to submit every trivial appointment to a governor, whose time was too valuable to be taken up with petty acts of detail, though as a matter of form such appointments were gazetted as being made by his authority. He challenged the new ministry to bring for- ward a single instance of the ordinary practice in such matters having been departed from.