D1.8.6: Graham's Town Customs Act

D1.8.6: Graham's Town Customs Act

Newspaper Clippings

Bleek calls the Customs Duties Indemnification Bill detrimental to the Cape Colony's commerce. He problematizes Governor Wodehouse's unconstitutional, arbitrary use of power and the worrying lack of foresight shown by public representatives who uninformedly support bills. Bleek feels that Graham's Town's geographic isolation and lack of 'independent public opinion' make its representatives especially out of touch. He believes the colonial legislature belongs in Cape Town because its unique geography facilitates complex diversity integral to vibrant intellectual life and deliberative politics.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

07 May 1864

Two cut-out columns of printed newsprint mounted on foolscap folio (warped). 'Graham's Town Customs Act' is the title Bleek wrote on the mount.

Graham's Town Customs Act, Customs Duties Indemnification Bill, Sir Philip Edmond Wodehouse (acts unconstitutionally), Graham's Town (unfit for legislative purposes), Cape Town (a seaport town), Constitutional Government

Pressed clippings of Victorian current affairs opinion pieces by Wilhelm Bleek. Published in Het Volksblad on Saturday, May 7th, 1864. Here, Bleek revisits the focus of his May 5th article. In this article, Bleek articulates a sort of Capetonian exceptionalism, which is possibly the sentiment underlying the Cape Town (old Germanophone elite) versus Graham's Town (new Anglophone elite) struggle for hegemony.

Van de Sandt de Villiers & Co.