COMMONWEALTH	367
years. Four of these Representatives are Maoris, elected by their
own people. There is provision for a Joint Sitting of the Houses to
settle points in dispute, but in practice the House of Represent-
atives does not experience serious opposition. The fertile land
and favourable climate are aids to prosperity, though New
Zealand has experienced the difficulties common to all food-
producing countries in recent years. State regulation of industry
and agriculture, and legislation concerning hours, wages, and
conditions of labour, have been carried further in New Zealand
than 'in any other part of the British Commonwealth.
THE UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA.
Before the Suez Canal was made, the shortest route to India
was round the Cape of Good Hope. From the sixteenth to the
eighteenth century, the great trading nations, Dutch, Portuguese
and British, secured a foothold there. In the early nineteenth
century, the Cape Colony came under British rule, and some
years later, the British secured control of Natal. Large numbers
of Boer (Dutch) settlers in the Cape, dissatisfied with British rule,
journeyed inland and established two independent Republics,
the Orange River, and the Transvaal; they also settled in Natal.
Discoveries of gold and diamonds in the Transvaal attracted many
British people. There they were known as "Outlanders", and
though they paid taxes, did not enjoy the rights of citizens. The
Boers maintained that they had created a civilized state out of
African jungle, and saw no reason why they should enfranchise
people who had come, after the difficult pioneering work was done,
to enrich themselves. The Outlanders replied that their enterprise
and capital had enriched the whole country. These differences led
to the Boer War, by the end of which in 1902 the Boer Republics
were part of the British Empire. There were thus four separate
Colonies in South Africa. The need for common policy with regard
to tariffs, the treatment of the native Africans, and the management
of the publicly owned railways, led to the making of plans for
Union. The Boer War had provoked much controversy in Britain;