Practically it is only at the Cape that the experiment of native suffrage has been fairly tried. In Jamaica it failed for various reasons, and in Natal it did not work when first tried, and at present has little more than a theoretical existence. In the eastern part of Cape Colony, which contains the chief native population--including the Kaffraria of earlier days and the Transkei region--a member of the Legislative Council is apportioned to mixed constituencies containing an average respectively of 227,000 colored people and 18,000 whites; and a member of the House of Assembly is similarly given to every 56,000 natives and 4,500 whites.[4] There are, as yet, not very many constituencies where this colored vote is an important consideration. The chief exceptions are to be found amongst the Malays in and around Cape Town, the Hottentots of the Kat River Settlement, and the Kaffirs at King Williamstown, Beaufort and Alice. But the number of voters is growing, and in the eastern part of the Colony their influence appears to be very good. The educated Kaffir is very unlike the educated Hindoo, who is apt to become a sort of skeptic in patriotism as well as in creed. He is intensely conservative in a natural fondness for land and aversion to change. He is also loyal in the extreme to the British institutions from which his opportunities and position are derived; and in this respect has set an example of gratitude worthy the appreciation of some more civilized peoples. Practically, he is an Imperialist, and one student of the subject has recently expressed a belief that the wiping out of the native vote in Cape Colony would mean the loss of eight or ten seats to the Progressive party in the Assembly. Most instructive of all, and even more striking than the fact of their being adherents of Mr. Rhodes' advanced British policy, has been the support given by educated natives to measures presented to the Legislature for the prohibition of the sale of liquor to colored people--proposals defeated from time to time largely by the Afrikander vote. This is, indeed, a fitting statement to conclude a brief sketch of native history and development. [4] Tables of Director of Census. Cape Town. 1891. CHAPTER IX. Character of the South African Boer. [Sidenote: A Peculiar Type]