ABSTRACT
THOSE who ten years ago insisted with so much assurance upon the inevitability of war in South Africa, failed to recognise that the sequel of the war was equally inevitable. That the most redoubtable Boer Generals, who eight years ago were in the field against our troops, should now be in London imposing on the British Government the terms of a national Constitution which will make them and their allies in the Cape the rulers of a virtually independent South Africa is, indeed, one of the brightest humours of modern history. The irony gets a broader touch of humour when Generals Smuts and Hertzog are gravely summoned to advise in the defence of the Em pire. 'rhe general view of the British public to\vards this outcome is one of tningled amazement and goodwill. This popular sentiment is in part penitence for a half-recognised misdeed, in part pride in our magnanimity, and in part a curious feeling that union has ju~ttificd the war. In fact, there are not wanting persons who believe not merely that there would have been no union without the war, but that the sole motive of the war was to bring about the union. But those who fasten their eyes on the abiding factors in the history of South Africa know that, war or no war, the achievement of political union bet\veen the free self-governing States lay in the early future as a' settled fact. Even before the spread of railways, and the new direction thus given to the course of trade, the issue was assured. For though the premature endeavour of British statesnlen to force the pace by pressure from without in 1878, and again by conspiring with financial politicians on the spot in 1895, paralysed for a time the internal forces working for union, these latter had too much vitality to suffer more than a brief check. Even had there been no war, the needs of union were ripening so fast that it is quite likely that consummation might have been achieved as early, though the Dutch supremacy which it embodies and assures would have been less conspicuous and the form of the union would probably have been less closely knit. The absence of strong national barriers, save in the case
of Natal, the similarity of racial, industrial, political· and social conditions throughout the cou}1try, the free interchange for purposes of business and of settlement between the white inhabitants of the several States, the community of interest in customs, transport, education, sanitation, finance and above all else, in native policy, were forces whose acceleration and direction were constant and uniform. The devastation of the Welr, with its fearful aftermath of poverty and universal distress, may, indeed, have precipitated action in its final stage. Adversity makes strange bedfellows and perhaps rendered easier that cooperation of Boers with Randlorcls, Bondmen with Progressives, which has been so interesting a feature in the making of the Constitution. One thing is certain. It welded into a passionate spirit of unity and fixed resolve that somewhat torpid and precarious sympathy between the Dutch of the Colony and of the two erstwhile Republics, which hitherto had failed to keep them to any lasting co-operation. So defective, indeed, was this sympathy before the war that within a single decade the members of a race alleged to be possessed by the single passion to drive the British into the sea were several times upon the very verge of an armed struggle anl0ng themselves over some question of trade or of right of way. The war has not made the Union, but it has made Dutch nlastery within the Union. To some it seems that the present control of the Dutch in three '0£ the four provinces and so in the Union is the mere turn of the scales in the changing fortunes of popular election. But I feel sure that the. keenwitted and loyal statesmen, who ten years ago defeated our armies and to-day rule our South African colonies, gauge the situation more truly. Our national sentimentalism befogs our vision. It delights us to imagine that at the close of a bloody and prolonged struggle, in which we wore down resistance by sheer dint of numbers, Briton and Boer should grasp hands of friendship, mutual respect warming into affection, every past unpleasantness at once forgotten, and all determined to live together happily for ever afterwards. A nice propriety of loyal speech in some of the Boer leaders may, indeed, be adduced in support of this romantic view of history. But it is foolish for those who wish to understand and estimate the future of the country where such bitter deeds were done to accept at their face value these polite assurances of oblivion. Loyalty under a flag which shall allow them perfect liberty to use their superior solidarity and persistency in shaping the destiny of the country they regard as peculiarly theirs, it is, indeed, reasonable to expect, but forgetfulness of the violence of the conquest, of the thousands of
children whose death by disease and starvation in the concentration camp~ blackens almost every family record in the two new colonies, such amnesty is not bought by the new glory of entering an Empire upon which the sun never sets, with its alien heritage of history.
