[1] _Life and Times of Sir George Grey_. By W. L. Rees. London, 1892. Vol. XI., p. 298. [Sidenote: The First Cape Ministry] The year 1872 had seen the grant of full responsible government to the Colony and the crowning of its Parliamentary system by the establishment of the first Cape Ministry. As in the British-American Colonies, from 1854 onwards, the Ministry now had to obtain and hold the confidence of a majority of the members of the House of Assembly, and its defeat upon any important question necessitated immediate retirement. The head of the Government, or Prime Minister, was _ex-officio_ in charge of native affairs within the Colony, but, owing to the complex position of South Africa in the relationship of its various states to each other and towards the natives, the Governor of Cape Colony remained High Commissioner in South Africa with the control of British interests outside the bounds of Cape Colony. In such matters he was responsible to the Crown and not to his own Colonial Ministry. Parliament could be dissolved, constitutionally, at the pleasure of the Governor, but practically and mainly upon the advice of his Ministry. It could not sit longer than five years, so that the people were, and are, able to turn out their Government either through pressure upon their representatives at Cape Town, resulting in a Parliamentary vote of want of confidence, or by their own votes at the polls as the result of a general election. The following have been successively Prime Ministers of Cape Colony: 1872, Sir John C. Molteno, K.C.M.G. 1878, Sir J. Gordon Sprigg, K.C.M.G. 1881, Sir Thomas C. Scanlen, K.C.M.G. 1884, Sir Thomas Upington, K.C.M.G. 1886, Sir J. Gordon Sprigg, K.C.M.G. 1890, The Hon. Cecil J. Rhodes. 1893, Right Hon. Cecil J. Rhodes, P.C. 1896, Right Hon. Sir Gordon Sprigg, P.C. 1898, Hon. W. P. Schreiner, Q.C., C.M.G. [Sidenote: Lord Carnarvon's Scheme of Federation]