The Union of South Africa

Botha's Ministry.

On Lord Gladstone fell the duty of choos ing the first prime minister of the Union Government. It was a difficult choice, as he had none of the guidance available normally to constitutional rulers from the trend of parliamentary opinion. A suggestion had been made that a junction between Jameson and Botha as representing the two main nationalities and parties in South Africa might effectively start the new venture on har monious lines ; but Botha found the idea impracticable. Then the choice lay between Merriman, the grand old man, as he might have been called, of South African politics and Botha, both actual prime ministers of the two leading provinces of the Union, the Cape and the Transvaal. Merriman himself and the Cape gen erally, as the senior colony, thought he was entitled to it : but Gladstone chose Botha, a choice which was amply justified by the event. Botha was successful in securing representatives of all four colonies in his ministry, in which besides himself the other outstanding figure was his fidus Achates General Jan Smuts (q.v.). It was indeed a party ministry, and at first it was chiefly supported by the Boers with insignificant exceptions.

The supreme aim of General Botha was conciliation between the two European races, which he hoped in time to weld into one Afrikander race; he also was determined to abide loyally by the spirit of Vereeniging and, from policy as well as sentiment, attached importance to the imperial connection. On the other hand there were many Boers, of whom the chief representative in the cabinet was General Hertzog, who were afraid of the insid ious influence of British ideas, and were determined to keep the old Boer Afrikander strain undiluted. Botha's suggestion of a con tribution to the navy at the Imperial Conference of 1911, his will ingness to welcome immigration from Britain and his curt declara tion that if Great Britain were at war, South Africa would necessarily be involved in it : all these indications awakened the alarm of Hertzog and his adherents; and he gave expression to this alarm in two public utterances that entirely ran counter to Botha's conciliatory policy. Since Hertzog would not resign, Botha himself resigned and on being entrusted with the formation of a new ministry in Dec. 191 2 excluded Hertzog. In the following year when the whole subject of policy was brought up at a general meeting of the South African party, while Botha secured the approval of the majority of those present, an appreciable minority, in agreement with Hertzog's views and led by de Wet, seceded. Thus Botha was more and more driven into cooperation with the progressive or unionist and mainly British party and lost much support from the backveld Boers.

Education.

With two races and two languages, education has been a controversial subject. The Boers naturally wished their children to be taught in their own language, at any rate in the early stages ; but against that were two obstacles, one that it was difficult to find enough good teachers who were also bilingual for schools where the races were mixed, the other that there was some difficulty in deciding between true Dutch and the Afrikaans form of it. Before the Union Smuts had introduced a fairly satisfactory compromise in the Transvaal, making the medium of instruction the home language up to the 3rd standard and English as the medium in all except two subjects thereafter ; but Hertzog in the Free State had made the mother tongue the medium up to the 4th standard and insisted on more Dutch in the higher standards. After the Union, parliament exercised its over-riding right of final decision even in educational questions by setting up a committee to report on the language question, as a result of which a com promise was adopted between the Transvaal and Free State arrangements. This report was more or less adopted by the four provinces. Primary education is now compulsory and free for all European children in the Union.

Native Policy.

One of the most important reasons for union and one of the most difficult problems to adjust was the elabora tion of a consistent native policy uniform for the whole of South Africa. The importance and urgency of the problem is evident

from the mere fact that in 1911 out of a total population in the Union of 5,973,394 no fewer than 4,019,006, i.e., were natives, as compared with only 1,276,242, i.e., 21.4%, Europeans, the remainder of the population being made up of 11.3% Asiatics and mixed races. Each of the four colonies had had a different system of administration for this large population of natives. In the Cape ever since 1854 there had been nominal equality between Europeans and educated natives, who enjoyed the privilege of the franchise; and a clause in the constitution specially safeguards this native franchise at the Cape against precipitate abolition by a majority from the other provinces. But since Rhodes's intro duction of the Glen Grey Act in 1895 the policy of entrusting natives of the Transkeian territories, where there were hardly any European settlers, with a large measure of responsibility for their own affairs, encouraging them to adopt individual tenure of their lands, and at the same time depriving them of the franchise for the Cape parliament, had been greatly extended. In Natal, though theoretically the natives had the same rights to the f ran chise as in the Cape, in practice only a handful exercised it : the serious rebellion in Zululand in 1906 had brought home to Natal the weakness of its native administration and recently the care of the natives had been entrusted to an expert commission almost independent of parliament. In the Transvaal and the Orange Free State the natives were still under the same regime as in the old republics, obliged to hold identification passes, subject to heavy hut-taxes, unable to hold land of their own and mostly confined to ill-defined reserves or to squatting on farmers' lands with much the same status as villeins; in the mining areas of the Transvaal there were also specially stringent pass provisions and enactments as to enlistment and employment of natives. This discordance of policy was recognized as a danger, all the more as with education and a growing tendency among natives to get employment in various parts of the Union and compare notes with one another, those more drastically repressed were beginning to demand the more favourable treatment accorded to others. Above all the feeling that they were being crowded out by a minority of Europeans from their just requirements in land was causing discontent. A commission appointed by Lord Milner before the Union had already made a comprehensive report on the whole native policy, and many commissions have since been constituted to investigate detailed aspects of the problem. But hitherto the difficulties have been too great to formulate a satisfactory and comprehensive policy for the whole Union. Some reforms how ever have been introduced. In 1911 a Native Labour Regulation Act was passed to apply to labour districts, similar to the Trans vaal mining areas, throughout South Africa, and in some respects making better provision for the welfare of the natives. In 1913 the Natives Land Act merely provided that natives and Europeans should not encroach on one another's lands, but foreshadowed a measure providing that more land should be made available for natives. So far, however, in spite of commissions and committees, the difficulties in giving material expression to this good intention have not been overcome. Useful legislation, however, has been passed in the Native (Urban Areas) Act of 1923 which makes for uniformity in the housing, etc., of natives in locations within urban limits, and still more by the act of 1925, which at last enacts one consistent system for the taxation of natives throughout the Union, while a great step forward was taken by Smuts in 1920 in securing more sympathetic and harmonious relations with the natives by the institution of a special Native Affairs Commission devoted to their interests and the revival of regular conferences with representative bodies of natives.