january 1933 The Secession Movement in South Africa Edgar H. Brookes Volume 11 • Number 2 The contents of Foreign Affairs are copyrighted.©1933 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution of this material is permitted only with the express written consent of Foreign Affairs. Visit www.foreignaffairs.com/permissions for more information. THE SECESSION MOVEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA By Edgar H. Brookes r 'HE Union of South Africa still suffers from the romantic illusions and false optimism which attended its foundation. The golden days of I9g0 assumed a union of hearts and not merely of institutions. Given patience, good will and favorable circumstances, those hopes might have been realized. But it was not to be. The young nation found itself plunged into the Great War only four years after the achievement of union. Still more significantly, Dutch South Africa was called upon to fight on be half of Great Britain against Germany less than thirteen years after the termination of thewar waged against Great Britain by the Republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State - a war inwhich they had received the ill-concealed sympathy of the Kaiser and his people. The strain was too great. The old Re publics blazed out into rebellion.With extraordinarymoral cour age Generals Botha and Smuts took the field, in honorable ful filment of their promises of allegiance, on the side of their ancient foe against their own people. They suppressed the rebellion. But they suppressed it at the cost of incurring immense unpopularity, and of being repudiated by a large section of their former sup porters. Their success led to the ultimate triumph of theNation alist movement under General Hertzog. That movement, seven years after Botha's death, succeeded in hounding Smuts out of office and seizing the reins of government. When theNational Convention met in I908-9 therewas much canvassing of a "federative solution." The delegation of Natal actually laid on the table a draft "British South Africa Act" embodying the federal principle. But the forcesworking against federation were too strong. The Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, John X. Merriman, with whom financial saving was almost a monomania, was convinced that federalism spelt ex travagance. Moreover, the larger colonies- the Cape and the Transvaal - contained large numbers of both races, Dutch and English, distributed in such a way as tomake it difficult to draw boundaries between them: thus federation on the Swiss model was impossible. It is true that each of the smaller provinces, Natal and the Orange Free State, was more homogeneous- the Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Foreign Affairs ® www.jstor.org 348 FOREIGN AFFAIRS one overwhelmingly English, the other overwhelmingly Dutch. But when ex-President Steyn of the Free State declared for a legislative union, the possibility of a federal solution disappeared. The whole weight of theTransvaal delegation headed by Generals Botha and Smuts was thrown in favor of union. Thus pressed, the Natal delegates unwillingly gave way. To placate them, a makeshift system of provincial councils was devised. Looked at superficially, this system bears some re semblance to a close federation of the Canadian type. In reality, however, all the essential elements of federalism are absent. The ordinances of the provincial councilsmay be vetoed by theUnion Government, which appoints and removes the administrator, the head of the province. The councils possess no exclusive legisla tive powers. On every point they may be overridden by Union legislation. The courts may declare their ordinances invalid - but the acts of the Union Parliament are not subject to that restriction. The powers of the councils may be curtailed or ex tended by unilateral action on the part of the Union Parliament, which also has the undoubted legal right to abolish them. In short, they are important local government bodies rather than organs of states in a federation. From the beginning, however, Natal regarded the councils as a fundamental part of the bargain of Union and thought of their maintenance as an undoubted moral obligation. One legal guar antee she thought she had secured. Bills abolishing provincial councils, or abridging their powers, were, in terms of the Consti tution, to be "reserved for the signification of His Majesty's pleasure." As the unwritten Constitution of theBritish Common wealth stood in I9IO, this meant that the King's Ministers in Great Britain would virtually be called in as arbitrators between the provinces and the Union. The process of amendment which has Just culminated in the Statute of Westminster has rendered this safeguard illusory. It is now universally accepted that the King is advised solely by his Dominion Ministers inmatters affect ing any particular Dominion. Reservation has thus become a meaningless anomaly. Natal's only protection remains the common sense and good faith of the rest of the Union. Isolated by Natal's geographical position -andstill more by her history from the general life of the Union, the people of Natal saw with surprise and displeasure the rapid development of an Africander nationalism all around her. In truth, the atmosphere SECESSION MOVEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA 349 of good will which was so apparent at theNational Convention was not deeply enough grounded to last. Generals Botha and Smuts were in a difficult position. Firmly convinced of thewisdom and righteousness of a policy of conciliation, they had to suffer the reproach frommany of their old friends of being weak-kneed compromisers, while their new supporters including a solid block of members fromNatal - had not enough vision or imagi nation to understand theDutch point of view and the singularly unhappy position of their leaders.While General Hertzog and others complained that the application of the bilingual principle was intolerably slow, Natal murmured at its being applied in practice even to a limited degree. Natalians forgot that Dutch had been the sole official language of the Transvaal and Free State less than ten years before the establishment of theUnion. It was hard to understand that their own natural and laudable British characteristic of warm-hearted loyalty to the thronewas not at all shared by many people outside Natal, and that even the leaders of the country felt an honorable but cold sense of obliga tion rather than a passionate devotion. Perhaps Botha's and Smuts's worst enemies were, after all, their friends. All these tendencies were accentuated by the Great War and the rebellion. The rebellionmade the success of the Nationalist Party possible, though the party itself had been founded two years earlier. General Hertzog, himself not a participant in the rebellion, had no hesitation in capitalizing the sentiments which it had aroused. Nationalism grew as a political force. General Hertzog himself has been fairly consistently (as he is today) an autonomist of the type of Arthur Griffith or Michael Collins rather than a republican secessionist. Many Nationalists, how ever, openly preached secession and were not disavowed. The party today contains strong republican elements, at present only held down by General Hertzog's personal influence. It was due principally to the preaching of these republican doc trines that the idea of the secession of Natal first began to be can vassed. Natal, in short, did not intend to secede from the Union until a strong group in theUnion openly talked of seceding from the Empire. The overwhelming majority of Natalians (to speak frankly) had not thought of the war in terms of South African interests at all. They fought and died, gallantly, cheer fully, for England, for the "old country," for "the Empire," not for South Africa nor yet to "make theworld safe for democracy." 350 FOREIGN AFFAIRS Their attitude was perfectly natural, intensely exasperating to theNationalists, and a source of embarrassment to the leaders Botha and Smuts - whom they still continued to support. While they were with great complacency contemplating the victorious end of the war and the terms of the armistice, they learned, to their undisguised horror and indignation, that a depu tation of leadingNationalists was planning to attend the Peace Conference, and to plead in the name of the principle of "self determination" for the restoration of the independence of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. That the members of the deputation seriously expected to attain their object may be doubted. They probably knew enough of English psychology to realize that Englishmen would never seriously consider self determination as applicable to a state so fortunate as to be a member of the British Commonwealth. The work of the deputa tionmay be regarded simply as a gesture, making clear, in a way not even very dignified, a point in a national argument. General Hertzog made the biggest mistake in his political career when he consented to form part of the deputation. Having committed himself to the secession of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State from the Union, he is in a very difficult position if he opposes the secession of Natal. So strong was republican feeling in theNationalist Party, that a great conference which was held in I920 to bring about reunion between it and the South African Party, led to nothing because the Nationalists would not agree to drop secession as an ideal. In despair, General Smuts turned to the Unionists. They repre sented the consciously British vote in the provinces other than Natal. Realizing the need of sacrificing much in order to save something, the Unionist Party adopted heroic measures. It de cided to dissolve, and itsmembers joined the South African Party. Even thenNatal provincialism persisted, and theNatal members of the South African Party continued to form a semi-independent wing, not fully amalgamating even with their fellow "Britishers" from other provinces.