landed aristocracy and gentry who still controlled the British political
system met them halfway. Their approach to the colonial question "was
fashioned, not by a calculated appraisal of economic interests, but by a
desire to giveBritish communities overseas the fullest possible control over
their internal affairs that circumstances permitted."68
This approach was echoed by British colonists in North America, Aus-
tralia, and New Zealand, who were involved in various conflicts with their
metropolitan officials and nominated councils. Accordingly, by midcen-
tury the British government was devolving increased power to those settler
communities. Canada, whose elective assemblies dated back to 1791, set
the pace, advancing from locally elected legislative bodies ("repre~entative
government") toward legislative control over the executive ("responsible
government"). Australia and New Zealand followed suit. In all those cases,
the settlers outnumbered the aborigines and nearly all of them came from
Britain.
How was the Cape Colony to fit into the imperial picture? Was it to be
treated as another Canada? Or like India, where the British government of
the mid-nineteenth century had no intention of creating elective institu-