SOUTH AFRICA






were Gen. Smuts and Sir Thos. Smartt, declined to subscribe
to the resolution which declared that it was desirable that " the
rights to citizenship " of Indians lawfully domiciled in other
parts of the Empire " should be recognized." They regretted
" their inability to accept this resolution in view of the excep-
tional circumstances of the greater part of the Union." Direct
negotiations between the Governments of India and of S.A.
to reach a more satisfactory position were not precluded. That
the Union delegates rightly interpreted the feeling of most
white South Africans was shown by an ordinance passed at
this time by the Natal provincial council to prevent any Indians
in the province acquiring in future the municipal franchise.
This ordinance was disallowed by the Union Government. At
the Cape at the same time an Indian, Dr. Abdurrahman, a well-
known member of the Cape Town municipality, was also a
member of the provincial council.

The first step taken by the Union Government in regard to
the relations between the white and native races was the de-
cision that the control of all regulations made by
The Na- local authorities affecting natives should be exercised
Ih^White not by the provincial councils but by the Govern-
Races. ment through the Native Affairs Department, a de-
cision tending towards a much-needed uniformity of
policy. While the Government were considering what principles
should guide their action public attention in 1911-2 was chiefly
focussed on one aspect of the question, assaults by Kaffirs on white
women. On the Rand in the first half of 1911 three Kaffirs were
shot by white women whom they had attempted to assault. This
shooting followed the commutation, in Jan. 1911, by the High
Commissioner (Lord Gladstone) of a death sentence on a Rho-
desian native convicted of an attempt to assault a white woman.
This action roused much indignation against the High Commis-
sioner who, however, met his critics fairly and won their respect.
But feeling was intensified by the acquittal in Aug. 1911, by a
Rhodesian jury, of a white man who had shot dead a Kaffir. (This
led to the making of a special jury list for the trial of such cases,
the ordinary jury not being trusted to administer impartial
justice.) In all during the year ending March 31 1912, there was
in the Union alone (i.e. Rhodesia excluded) 85 cases of outrages
upon Europeans by natives, as compared with 69 during 1910.
On the Rand the evil was attributed in part to illicit liquor selling
and in part to the fact that the mine labourers were without their
women-folk, and a petition signed by 52,000 Rand residents
(presented to Parliament May 1912) asked inter alia for the
provision of compounds in which natives should be permitted to
keep their wives, as well as for facilities for training native female
servants and for the importation of European domestics.

A commission, appointed in June 1912 on the motion of Sir
Thomas Smartt, enquired into the prevalence of sexual assaults,
and the extent to which they were attributable to economic and
social factors. This commission was presided over by Mr. Melius
de Villiers, ex-chief justice of the Free State and included four
ladies, one from each province. On its report remedial measures
were taken, such as provision for wives in the compounds. It
was shown that one cause of the evil was the undue familiarity
with which many white women treated male natives employed
by them as domestic servants. The measures taken had a good
effect, and assaults of the character stated became fewer.

On the larger question as to the place which the Bantu should
hold in the community there was much heart searching. There
was on the part of the whites agreement on one point only
the dependence of agriculture and industry on the manual
labour of the native. The situation was complicated by the
fact that the whites had not only the native to deal with but
a very large number of coloured persons with a greater or less
proportion of white blood the well-known " Cape Boys."
These people not only competed with the whites in skilled labour,
but a good many of them had entered the professions as lawyers,
doctors, journalists, land surveyors, etc. The pure African was
following their example, and both the coloured and native
peoples were learning the power of cooperation. They had their
own newspapers, their own political and trade organizations,



and were quick to learn from the methods of the whites. Es-
pecially powerful was the influence of education and Christian
missions. Many natives made great sacrifices to obtain educa-
tion. For educational facilities they had to rely chiefly upon
the missionary societies. The provincial councils were not
generous in their expenditure in this respect though the total
expended on native education rose from 81,000 in 1913 to
137,000 in 1918. More than half the total sum was spent by
the Cape province. In regard to higher education the Union
Government took a somewhat more liberal attitude and gave its
support to the South African Native College at Fort Hare.

The desire of the natives, or the more vocal section of the
natives, to escape from European tutelage was seen in a growing
inclination, particularly in the Transkeian territories, to secular-
ize education and to obtain a larger share in its management.
This desire for " self-determination " was also seen in the setting
up of many churches independent of European control, a move-
ment fostered by intercourse with the negro churches of the
United States. Of these native separatist churches perhaps
the most influential was the " Ethiopian Church of South'
Africa." Their leaders joined in the demands of the " Native
National Congress," an organization claiming to represent the
Bantu peoples of S.A., in demanding redress of grievances and
in especial the removal of the colour bar which existed in all the
provinces except the Cape. A deputation from this body came
to England in-igig " not to demand independence, but admission
into British citizenship."

Such were the aspirations of educated men among the coloured
and native races; the more extreme, among whom communist
doctrines had gained a hold, raised the cry of " Africa for the
Africans." The loyalty of the natives and the valuable services
they rendered during the World War went to show that the
extremists were not an immediate danger. But the natives also
during the war got a new idea of their power. Bantus in Rho-
desia, the " Cape Boys " from the Union served as combatants
in the E.A. campaign and they saw that the heaviest fighting
there fell to black troops. A new situation had arisen, one of the
most noteworthy being the development of a race, as distinct
from tribal, consciousness.

The problem as it presented itself to the Union Government
was how best to secure the future for the white race in S.A.,
surrounded as it was by a black population five or six times
its numbers. The Government would have had to face the
bitterest hostility of the Dutch community, and of a considerable
section of the British in Natal and the Transvaal had they
attempted to remove the colour-bar in those provinces or in the
Free State; had the Boers had their way the colour-bar would
have been set up in the Cape province. Gen. Botha did not
subscribe to the principle of Cecil Rhodes " equal rights for
all civilized men." Yet he and his colleagues acknowledged that
it was the duty of the State to help forward the native on the
path of efficiency and civilization, in opposition to the standpoint
of the extreme Dutch Nationalists that there was no room for
the advancement of the native save at the expense of the white
man. The point of view of the Government was that the natives
should be aided in such a manner that they should not come
into competition with the whites. The proposal which attracted
most support was to keep blacks and whites in separate areas,
while still employing natives for labour on white enterprises.
The plan was feasible; it was for example being worked in Basuto-
land under the Colonial Office. In that territory white settle-
ment was forbidden, but thousands of Basutos went on contract
to the gold-mines or to farms in the Free State. And there were
already native areas in the Cape, such as the Transkei, where,
under white officials, the natives possessed some share in the
administration. It was in this direction Gen. Botha looked for a
solution of the problem. In a speech in Parliament (May 9 1912)
he stated that " the time was coming when the native question
would have to be considered most seriously in the direction
of keeping whites and natives apart and preventing their inter-
mingling. They would have to fix attention closely on the
question of segregation, while treating everyone with absolute



SOUTH AFRICA



539



justice." The segregation plan received the support, among
many others, of Sir Matthew Nathan, an ex-governor of Natal,
and Gen. Hertzog. But it was opposed by those who, like Mr.
P. W. Schreiner and Mr. Patrick Duncan (a leading member of
the Unionist party) , regarded it as both wrong and impolitic to
put hindrances in the way of the advancement of the natives in
civilization and industrial efficiency. Mr. Duncan in a striking
pamphlet published in Oct. 1912 (" Suggestions for a Native
Policy ") admitted the dangers foreseen by the segregationists,
but believed the remedy to be in European immigration on a
large scale. " Nothing else," he declared, " will save S.A. for the
European race." But to immigration on a large scale the Dutch
community was definitely opposed, and it was not till 1920 that
the Government made any strenuous effort to attract white
settlers to the country.

A motion brought forward at the Unionist Congress in Johan-
nesburg (Nov. 21 1912) to commit the party to the policy of
segregation was defeated, the previous question being carried by
91 votes to 7. Opinion being so divided the Union Government
found great difficulty in shaping its native policy. As a tempo-
rary measure a Native Land Act was passed in 1913 which pro-
hibited the further acquisition of land by natives or from natives
an Act which led to vehement protests from native associa-
tions and leaders of native thought, while a legal decision was
obtained that the provision of the Act did not apply to the Cape
province. The Act had set up a commission, under the chair-
manship of Sir William Beaumont, which had for its object the
ascertainment of what land areas should be allocated to natives
and those from which they should be excluded. The commission
reported in 1916 and a Native Affairs Administration bill was
introduced in 1917, chiefly as a means of ascertaining public
opinion, native as well as white. It embodied the principle of
separate areas in rural districts. After exhaustive consideration
Parliament in 1920 passed a Native Affairs Act which was in
effect a half-way segregation measure. The Act, for which Gen.
Smuts was largely responsible, was based on the principle
that the white man is the permanent and predominant factor
in the civilization and government of S. Africa. But it was not
repressive to the black man. It set aside areas for the exclusive
occupation of the natives in which they would have greater
opportunities than before for obtaining local self-government,
it opened the way to a system of representative native congresses
which would express authoritatively native opinion on intended
legislation, and it held out the prospect of the development of
native institutions parallel to but separate from those of the
whites. In short Gen. Smuts, the great advocate for the union
of the two European races in S.A., was equally earnest in his
efforts to keep the streams of white and (nascent) black civiliza-
tion apart. A feature of the Act of 1920 was the establishment of
a permanent Native Affairs Commission to deal with the position
of natives in urban areas, education and the Pass Law system,
in all of which matters it was admitted that the natives had not
received fair treatment. The Act was regarded by the white
community Dutch extremists apart as a piece of constructive
statesmanship, and its policy received the approval of the most
responsible leaders of the natives. But danger lay in the in-
flammable language and actions of less responsible, and less
educated agitators, working on the mass of their fellows, scarcely
emerged from barbarism, and in the equally pernicious utterances
of the white extremists. Events in 1920-1 showed the peril
attendant on any mishandling of the native question.

The promotion of trade and agriculture occupied much of

the energies of the people and Government. A prolonged

. drought lasting from Oct. 1911 to Nov. 1912 the

Trade and * . , . ,-, v . . , ' . j

Tariffs. most severe experienced in S.A. since 1862, affected
chiefly Natal, the Transvaal and the Transkei. The
severe losses sustained forced attention to the need of more
scientific farming and to irrigation works, upon which the Govern-
ment expended 500,000 in 1912. In 1919 there was another very
serious drought involving the country in an expenditure of
16,000,000. This led to the appointment of a commission in
1920 to enquire into drought, soil erosion and other allied prob-



lems. One result was to emphasize the need of water storage in
connexion with irrigation. In Oct. 1912 a State Land and Agri-
cultural Bank began operations in the Union, and a similar
institution was established in Rhodesia.

Much diversity of view existed as to the tariff policy of the
Union. Early in 1912 a commission, of which Sir T. M. Cullinan
was chairman, appointed to enquire into the conditions of trade
and industries reported in favour of increased duties on wheat,
flour, sugar, tea, clothing and furniture, declaring that it was
" not only necessary that a policy of protection should be
adopted, but that there should be continuity of policy." Two
influential members presented minority reports in favour of the
"open-door." Rhodesian feeling was in favour of a lower tariff,
and it was suggested that Rhodesia might withdraw from the
Customs Union rather than bear greater fiscal burdens. At
Johannesburg on Nov. 19 1912 Sir Thomas Smartt declared that
a plank in the Unionist party's platform was a tariff primarily
for revenue purposes, combined with a policy for the encourage-
ment of industries for the general benefit and the extension of the
existing imperial preference. This was, in the main, the solution
adopted. Tariffs and rebates were fixed by various Acts of
Parliament passed between 1914 and 1919, designed to afford
relief to home manufactures, the majority newly established.
An Industries Advisory Board was set up in Oct. 1916, consisting
for the most part of business men, and early in 1917 a Scientific
and Technical Committee was instituted. There followed in
1921 the creation of a Board of Trade and Industries, and a
definite policy of industrial development was undertaken by the
Government. But Mr. F. S. Malan, Minister of Mines (and
then acting Prime Minister) addressing the convention of the
Federated Chamber of Industries at Port Elizabeth (July 25
1921) declared that the Government had no intention of "go-
ing in for an out-and-out protective policy." And Col. Reitz
(Minister of Lands) told the sugar planters of Zululand that
" the consumer must be protected. Higher tariffs would mean
dearer prices."

One great department of state, the Railways and Harbour
Board, was required by the Act of Union to be run with due
regard to agricultural and industrial development and not as
a producer of revenue for extraneous purposes. The Board built
needed railway lines and undertook harbour works, though
nothing material was done to enlarge the docks at Table Bay, a
matter which provoked strong protests from the citizens of Cape
Town. Mr. Sauer, the minister in charge of the department
whose budget was separate from that of the general budget of the
Union took an independent view of his duties and as early as
July 1911 differences arose between him and his colleagues,
especially with Mr. Hull, the Finance Minister. Mr. Hull had
also to meet the attacks of Mr. Merriman, the most accomplished
parliamentarian and ablest financier in the House of Assembly
and a very candid friend of the Ministry. Mr. Merriman de-
nounced the Government's financial proposals as predatory and
extravagant, while Mr. Hull alleged that railway expenditure
was incurred without Treasury sanction that there had been a
tendency to regard the railway and harbour administration as
something for which the Government had no collective responsi-
bility. General Botha admitted that the Cabinet had not been
sufficiently consulted in railway matters and on May 18 1912
Mr. Hull resigned. A reconstruction of the Ministry was post-
poned until after the close of the parliamentary session (June 24),
when the chief changes made were the appointment of Mr. Henry
Burton (an ex-Cape minister), to the Ministry of Railway and
Harbours, while Mr. Sauer became Minister of Agriculture, an
office which Gen. Botha had combined with the premiership.

The differences between Mr. Hull and Mr. Sauer were shortly
afterwards forgotten in consequence of the attitude taken up by
Gen. Hertzog, who now began publicly to assail
the principles upon which the Union had been estab- J^ a ^
lished. To what extent Hertzog was supported or policy.
restrained by ex-President Steyn is uncertain; but
Steyn, whose opinion would have been decisive with a large
section of the Dutch community, did nothing publicly to counter-



54



SOUTH AFRICA



act the rekindling of the fires of racial bitterness. The by-election
campaign at Albany, caused by the resignation of Sir Starr
Jameson, brought about a crisis. General Botha, and with him
Gen. Smuts and the majority of the Dutch members of the
Cabinet, had definitely accepted the British connexion, and the
position of S.A. as a self-governing member of an Imperial
Commonwealth, with corresponding responsibilities, and, know-
ing that peace between the two white races was essential to the
prosperity of the country, he was an ardent advocate of the
closest cooperation between them. On both these points Hertzog
was violently opposed to his colleagues. His motto " South
Africa first " meant in fact Dutch supremacy. In a speech at
Nylstroom (Oct. 1912) he characterized Sir Thomas Smartt
(who had succeeded Jameson as leader of the Unionist party)
and other prominent members of the Opposition as " undesirable
political foreign adventurers," and at Rustenburg, on Dec. 8,
he declared that imperialism appealed to him only when it was
useful to S. Africa. He had a short time previously pronounced
in favour of the Dutch and British in S.A. remaining " two
nationalities flowing each in a separate channel." General Botha
though he publicly dissented from Gen. Hertzog's views was
desirous if possible to avoid an open breach, but after the Rusten-
burg speech action was unavoidable. On Dec. 1 2 Col. Leuchers,
Minister of Public Works and a Natal member of Parliament,
resigned as a protest against Hertzog's " anti-British and anti-
imperial sentiments." Botha then intimated to Hertzog that
his resignation would be acceptable, but Hertzog refused to move.
Botha met this difficulty by tendering his own resignation,
Dec. 15, and was at once asked by the governor-general (Lord
Gladstone) to form a new Ministry. This he had accomplished
by Dec. 20, the new Cabinet being composed of the same mem-
bers as the old except for the omission of Gen. Hertzog and Col.
Leuchers (the latter replaced by Sir Thos. Watt, another Natal
member). The death of two ministers Mr. Sauer and Mr.
Fischer during 1913 necessitated a further remodelling of the
Cabinet. Mr. N. J. de Wet became Minister of Justice and Mr.
H. C. Van Heerden Minister of Agriculture. 1

The cleavage in the ranks of the ministerialists (the S.A.
party) became complete in 1913. It was soon apparent that the
appeal to Dutch racialism had considerable support, notably
in the O.F.S., and some 10 or 12 members of the House of
Assembly elected as supporters of Gen. Botha turned to Hertzog
as their leader. At the party conference opened at Cape Town
on Nov. 30 Gen. de Wet nominated ex-President Steyn as
" leader of the party outside Parliament, with power to nominate
the Prime Minister." On this proposal being defeated the mal-
contents left the conference in a body and in Jan. 1914 a new
party under Hertzog's leadership was formed. It took the title
of the Nationalist party.

The year 1913 and the opening months of 1914 were, however,
as notable for labour unrest as for political differences. The
disturbances in Natal due to the opposition of the
ta"fr Indians to the Asiatic legislation of the Union have
Riot*. already been recorded. They caused no such trouble
as attended disturbances on the Rand, which began
with a strike of the white miners at the New Kleinfontein mine
in May 1913. The strike was nominally on the question of hours,
but it was symptomatic of a determination of Labour to gain
greater control over industrial conditions. There was, too, a
revolutionary wing to the movement, and the extremists seemed
likely to carry with them the mass of the men. 2 The two antag-
onistic views were afterwards sharply put by Gen. Smuts and
Mr. Creswell, the latter the leader of the parliamentary Labour

The year 1913 witnessed the death of other prominent S. Afri-
cans : Sir Gordon Sprigg, four times Prime M inister of Cape Colony,
Sir Richard Solomon, High Commissioner in London of the Union,
and Dinizulu, the son of Cetywayo. Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson,
formerly Governor of Natal and of Cape Colony, also died in 1913.
Sir R. Solomon was succeeded as High Commissioner by Mr. W. P.
Schreiner, who died in 1919. Sir Edgar Walton was appointed
High Commissioner in 1921.

1 The white employees in the mines were almost equally divided
between those born in S.A. and those born in the United Kingdom.
The foreign born were scarcely 5%.



party. Smuts declared the movement to have been " a con-
spiracy against constituted order." Mr. Creswell declared that
there was " a conspiracy (of the Govt.) with capitalists to run
the country in their own interests." Neither view gave a satis-
factory explanation of the facts. The strike extended, negotia-
tions for a settlement failed, feeling ran high and by the end of
June the Government had drafted 2,000 troops into the Benoni
district, the centre of unrest, and some 20 m. E. of Johannes-
burg. The leaders of the strike had chosen a time when the
Union was without a regular armed force of its own. The citizen
army provided by the Act of 1912 was not yet formed, while
the militia and volunteers had been disbanded as from July i,
and the permanent force the S.A. Mounted Riflemen pro-
vided for in the Act of 1912, had only begun training in April
(1913). British regulars were therefore drafted into Johannes-
burg, where serious rioting followed a demonstration by the
men in Market Sq. (July 4). The strikers seized the electric
power station, and during a night of terror burned down the
Park railway station and the offices of the Star newspaper.
Several persons were killed and many injured in conflicts with
the police and military. The next morning Gens. Botha and
Smuts intervened and opened negotiations with the strikers.
While these were going on dynamite explosions occurred and
the mob attacked the Rand club. The negotiators succeeded in
reaching agreement and at night the strike was declared "off",
one condition being the reinstatement of the men at the New
Kleinfontein mine. But it was difficult to appease the mob and
there was further rioting on July 6. In all some 20 persons were
killed and 250 injured. A grave element of danger was the excited
condition of the native labourers on the Rand mines and it was-
in part consideration of what they might do if the riots continued
that drew the authorities and the strike leaders together. The
situation continued anxious, as extremists were calling for a new
and general strike. But on July 31 the executive of the Federa-
tion of Trades decided by 65 votes against 18 not to call a general
strike. An official inquiry into labour conditions was then
instituted, but in Jan. 1914 new trouble arose. A policy of re-
trenchment on the railways was resented by the men and a
general strike proclaimed for Jan. 14. It was, according to the
official view, an attempt by the Trades' Federation to control