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The Seven Circles Act, 1874, was an act of the Cape Parliament that divided the Cape Colony into seven provinces (or "circles") for the Legislative Council elections. Previously, the country had been divided into two large provinces, the Western and the Eastern Provinces, which had led to decades of polarisation and competition. The act was important in that it ended the bitter political schism that had divided the Cape for much of the 19th century. It formed part of the 1874 Constitutional Amendment Bill. ==Background== The Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope was bicameral, with a lower house (Legislative Assembly) and an upper house (Legislative Council). The latter had considerable power and influence on the lower house, and was elected according to two large provinces: * The Western Province, centred on Cape Town * The Eastern Province, centred on Port Elizabeth The Western Province was larger, and was the seat of the country's capital city, Cape Town, however the electoral system gave the two entities near equal political power. (The Western province had only two more seats than the Eastern, though its voting population was very much larger.) The result was political competition, which gradually evolved into growing regional political parties, and then into severe polarisation between the two provinces. The instability of the system often paralyzed government. In fear of dominance by Cape Town, the Eastern Province leaders came to demand greater British Imperial control, and a long-running separatist movement arose. Persistent disputes included frontier issues, with the Eastern Province leaders favouring a far harsher and more expansionist policy towards the neighbouring Xhosa people. The Western Province was dominated by liberals who were less expansionist and were accused by Eastern leaders of favouring the Xhosa in their frontier policy. The deadlock and regional polarisation was complicated by the division between the Eastern towns of Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown, which began competing for political dominance within the Eastern Province. The Cape at the time ran a system of representative government, whereby the legislature was elected, but executive power remained firmly in the hands of an unelected British Governor, who was appointed by the British Colonial Office. A resulting lack of accountability led to budget mismanagement and economic stagnation. Distrust of the Governor also led to a deadlock between the elected parliament and the unelected executive. Popular distrust also scuppered Governor Wodehouse's prior attempt (1869) to redraw the electoral districts (this was to be done by abolishing the lower house and establishing a system of alternating councils with 6 electoral districts and greater British control of nominations). A movement began in the Western Province to make the Executive elected and therefore accountable (or "responsible") to the local electorate. This movement for "Responsible Government" was opposed by the Eastern leaders who feared Western Province domination (as well as by conservatives in the West). However, the split in the Eastern Province party between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth, together with the mobilisation of small but growing electoral minorities such as Black African voters (who generally supported the Western Province party), allowed the Western-based leader John Molteno to institute Responsible Government in 1872.〔R. Kilpin (1901) ''The Old Cape House, being pages from the history of a legislative assembly'' Maskew Miller, Cape Town〕〔J.L. McCracken (1967) ''The Cape Parliament, 1854-1910'', Clarendon Press, Oxford pp. 23 & 109〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Seven Circles Act」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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