D1.8.74: [Untitled]

D1.8.74: [Untitled]

Newspaper Clippings

Bleek remarks that although parliament is now fully constituted and in session, it is too early to know the state of political parties and their policy agendas after an influx of new members post-census. The colony's dire situation may also encourage unexpected alliances. He hopes the emergence of real political parties that champion Responsible Government will overpower parliament's old guard subscribed to the clique system. Mr Glanville's (Thomas Burt Glanville MP [1822-1878]?) motion proposes that more government officers are needed and reminds Bleek of one brought forward by William Porter seven years earlier. Even Porter, who opposed Saul Solomon's Voluntary Principle and advocated for the state grants system, agreed that it was unjust to uniformly impose a church tax or worship tax that extended to non-beneficiaries in a pluralistic society. Glanville's motion, like Porter's, may atrophy yet in some way succeed in shaping thoughts. Parliamentary novices are too preoccupied with fiscal concerns to ponder untimely sovereignty matters like Responsible Government. Meaningful economic reform will be slow and deliberative, but the state will suffer if other problems get ignored. Unlike the private sector workforce, public servants are specialised in niche aspects of state affairs and possess less conventional transferable skills. For the bureaucracy, the state is the only game in town. Retrenching a competent bureaucracy is a cosmetic stopgap that will eventually harm the economy.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

04 October 1866

Two cut-out columns of printed newsprint mounted on foolscap folio (warped).

Voluntary principle (Saul Solomon's), Responsible Government, Mr Glanville (his motion for more personnel), Mr Porter (William Porter)

Pressed clippings of Victorian current affairs opinion pieces by Wilhelm Bleek. Bleek refers to four unnamed parliamentarians as Governor Wodehouse's 'four mouths' (i.e., his mouthpieces). It's unclear who they might be.

Van de Sandt de Villiers & Co.