In South Africa "what mainly angered the Cape colonists was the inadequacy of the compensation which was awarded in their case. The value of the slaves on Dec. 1, 1834, when the Emancipation Act came into effect, was estimated by the commissioners specially appointed for the purpose at three million sterling. The sum allotted by the Imperial Government was no more than one and a quarter million, payable, not in South Africa, but in London, and with a deduction of any expenses incurred in carrying out the work of emancipation. The result was to impoverish the former slave owners, and to awaken in them a bitter feeling of resentment against the government which had deprived them of their property, and against the philanthropists by whom the policy of emancipation had been inspired."[84-1] This step had been taken without the consent of the governed, {85} the slave-holding communities having no representation in the Parliament that enacted the law. Theoretically the same right exists to-day.[85-1] "In granting self-government to the British Dominions Britain did not change her constitution. Conscious that the British Government could not rule great communities in America, Australasia, and Africa, . . . Britain has agreed that they shall manage their own affairs. But she has never undertaken, and could not undertake, a clear division of functions, nor could she in theory explicitly divest herself of final responsibility in any sphere of government. The British North America Act is a constitution by which the relations of the Federal Government of Canada with the Provincial Governments are fully regulated and defined; but it is not a constitution by which the relations of that Federal Government with the Imperial Government are fully regulated or defined. . . . Any constitutional powers vested in the English Government before the grant of self-government to the Dominions are in theory still vested in that Government today."[85-2] In practice this theoretical right has yielded to the stronger claim of self-government. "My vindication of the preference policy was given not at Ottawa or on Canadian soil, but in the heart of the Empire at London, at the Colonial Conference, when I declared to the Empire that {86} I and my colleagues of the Government were ready to make a trade treaty. We said, 'we are ready to discuss with you articles on which we can give you a preference, and articles on which you can give us a preference. We are ready to make with you a treaty of trade.' Mark those words coming from a colony to the mother country without offence being given or taken."[86-1] "What has never been questioned since the War of Independence is that a democracy pretending to a sovereignty over other democracies is either a phantom or the most intolerable of all oppressions."[86-2] "Nobody dreams in these days of the British Parliament making laws for Canada or Australia. Such an idea is alien to all thinking men, . . . [86-3]