ABSTRACT
The success of self-government and the development of prosperity seemed to require a certain isolation from the rest of South Africa. The emphasis upon property placed a premium upon the more conservative elements and obstructed the emergence of liberal ideas on such important matters as the economic and political status of the natives. Cape institutions showed little of the tendency so marked even in the early Australian legislatures to undertake what were for the times radical social and political reforms. The quarrel between the Cape and Home Governments that so profoundly influenced the course of South African history, no doubt took place mainly in those ill-defined constitutional borderlands upon which John Charles Molteno's aggressive defence of the privileges of self-government and Carnarvon’s strong sense of imperial responsibility both encroached. Colonel Crossman, who had penetrated deeply into the affairs of the diamond fields, reported that of the disputed Ramah-Vetberg lines the one claimed by the Free State was alone acceptable.
