DURBAN, MONDAY, MAY 30, 1960

U N ITATE

A SOUVENIR OF THE FIRST 50 YEARS OF UNION

PAGE 2 THE NATAL DAILY NEWS UNION JUBILEE SUPPLEMENT, MAY 30. 1960

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THE NATAL DAILY NEWS UNION JUBILEE SUPPLEMENT, MAY 30, 1960 PACE 3•w m w wrw w + m m m w m * >

L eft : The new6d. stamp hasthe coat of arms

of the Unionand those ofthe four pro-

Vinces.

By C. Pama(author of Die Wapens van die ou Afrikaanse Families' and ‘Heraldiek in Suid - Afrika)

IN 1910, when the first Union Cabinet began devising a coat of arms and a flag for the new

South Africa, it had little from which to choose. The South African War was still a fresh memory Adopting one of the symbols of either side would have contributed nothing to unity. On the other hand, emblems which everybody in the four provinces could accept as representative for the whole of South Africa did not yet exist.

To be sure, many years earlier, Mr. C. D. Hope, head of the Boys’ High School, Potchefstroom, had declared that the springbok was the only national symbol of the whole of South Africa, but this was not generally accepted, and in course of time it developed more into a sporting than a national emblem. _

In 1904, Dr. P. E. Ensor of the Eastern Province published a pamphlet favouring the aloe as the best symbol representing South Africa. Although his proposal was repeated in 1910, it found no response.

There is no evidence that the new Government ever attempted to create a single new symbol. They obviously realized the hopelessness of such a task.

They found however, a solution in combining the four principal charges of the arms of the old colonies into a single shield, thus giving the same honour to all constituting parts without creating anything new.

Consequently, we see the old Cape Virgin in the first quarter of the Union arms. It was one of the oldest emblems of the Cape and therefore of the whole of South Africa.

First appearing on the seal of the Mother Church, the Groote Kerk, in Adderley Street, it was soon accepted as symbolizing the Cape Colony

The division between Church and State not being so sharp as it is now, nobody had difficulty in accepting the Virgin with the anchor as the obvious symbol of Good Hope.

It remained, therefore, popular also m the British period when some people even began to think that the Virgin was Britannia herself in aCape disguise. „ _ ,

When a coat of arms for the Cape Colony had to be chosen the old maid was therefore rightly adopted as the crest, and she Also Supports the arms of the City of Cape Town

FOR Natal, the choice was less obvious. The colony had used a seal with the British arms, as most

British colonies did, and had added a symbol of its own under the British arms: two wildebeeste.

Probably no deeper meaning was attached to this choice than that those animals were numerousin old Natal. . ■ ' _ ..There was never any special attachmept of the Natal people to the wildebeeste, but they had been representing Natal for some time a,nd — because they were now incorporated in the Unions arms they have remained the arms of Natal ever since.

With the former Boer republics, it Was, of course, a different matter. Not only had they arms of their own, but their people were very attachedto ty ^ 1ortunatelyj they were also rather compli­cated, and therefore such charges had to be chosen which were more representative than the others.

The choice was a happy one. The Free State became represented by an orange tree which, although originally probably intended to be a wild olive tree, nevertheless unmistakably indicated the Orange of the Free State and the River.

The doubt as to what kind of tree it really was disappeared when, in 1932, some very fresh oranges were painted on the leaves.

THAT the Transvaal should be represented by an ox-wagon was also natural. What other symbol

could do better justice to the land of the Voor- trckkcrs!

From the South African Republic also came the Union’s motto, ’Ex Unitate Vires,’ which in its Dutch form, ‘Eendragt Maakt Magt,’ first adorned the flag and later the arms of the old Transvaal.

In the Union coat of„arms it also creates a link with the founder-country of South Africa, Holland, because it was from the Dutch arms that Andries Pretorius in 1839 adopted the motto.

R igh t: The 4d.stamp has the Union Flag and the first few notes of ‘Die Stem’ in its

design.

, a * « « * i * A . M.

The original Union coat of arms.

For nearly 16 years this Was the Union Flag.

These arms were familiar enough with the Voortrekkers, because they appeared on every copy of their State-Bybels, their most precious possession.

In the Netherlands this motto originally expressed more a pious desire than a reality, because no country was less united at its beginning than the United Netherlands.

For the same reason, they adopted a lion as , their coqV of arms and gave him a sword and seven arrows in his paws, the arrows tied togetner with a ribbon on which appeared the word ‘Concordia’ (unity), an effort to express at all cost this precious idea of unity which had ye^nardly taken root. > *

That this idea also strongly appealed to the fathers of the Union of South Africa is therefore hardly surprising. They, top, adopted the lion, but this time they put in his paw four staves tied with a ribbon, Symbolizing the four provinces of South Africa fis the seven arrows had stood for the seven provinces of the Netherlands.

Union, however, was so much a compromise that this old Dutch symbol was represented on top of the Union arms in a way which was character­istically English. \ i ...

In the Netherlands lions were rampant, in "'Britain passant guardant, or, more plainly, leopards.

It was the British form which was chosen for the crest, thus uniting the best of the Dutch and the British tradition.

After all these excursions in history, the Govem-

Qment made this new coat of arms with one stroke nt«\a real South African V in e by, adding as uppoftefs two animals that could not have been

chosen by any other country: a springbok and an oryx or gemsbok.

THIS coat of arms was finally granted to the Union under a Royal Warrant of September 17, 1910,

and has never been changed since.As a whole, it is very pleasing and there has

been no criticism of its composition, but when the Union was 20 years old there arose some objection as to its execution. It was considered by some experts to be ’crude and inartistic.

Because of this, the Government had a new drawing made in 1930 which is now in general use on Government letterheads, communications, etc.

The Cabinet commissioned a well-known artist, Mr Kruger Gray, to make an ‘artistic, fine drawing’ of the arms for decorative purposes. This embellished coat of arms was registered with the College of Arms on September 21, 1932. and js also still in general use.

Symbol of the Union Jubilee Festival.

Its main difference with the simpler design is that a helmet with mantling is placed between the wreath and the shield, which is more in keeping with old heraldic art and tradition. Two protea branches with flowers were planted between the legs of the supporters

A third design of the Union’s arms, the shield only, with or without the royal crown, is used on some coins and for specific purposes. That, too. is in accordance with old heraldic usage.

IF the first Union Cabinet had followed the same policy with regard to the flag as it did with the

coat of arms, probably no ‘flag struggle’ would have arisen later.

But a flag combining the flags of the four provinces may not have looked very good. This was demonstrated in 1926, when the so-called Senate flag indeed combined the Union Jack, the two Vierkleurs and a blue cloth with four white stars together with a white cross. One look at this proposal suffices to kill any regret that in 1910 we were spared the effort.

Botha’s Cabinet instead followed the usual British custom which was that all colonies placed their badges on the ‘fly’ (the red field) of the Red Ensign, the flag of the British Merchant Navy, and that the Dominions were invited to fill the ‘fly’ with whatever design they might wish.

Canada chose her coat of arms; Australia the stars of the Southern Cross, and now South Africa, Shortly after Union, in a dispatch signed by General Hertzog as Minister or the interior, chose the Unions coat of arms. In, fact, the Irish Free State was the only state in the Commonwealth which chose a more individual flag.

Whether the first Union Cabinet thought the flag question was thereby solved once for all, or whether it considered the design as a kind of ‘caretaker’ flag, to be replaced as soon as more thought cbtfld be given to the matter, nobody knows for sure.

The fact is this- flag gained little popularity, and when it was decided to replace it with some other design there were few people who wanted to retain it. IThe flag struggle, some 16 years later, ultimately

turned on the question of the Union Jack pure and simple; one part o f the population seeking to retain it at all cost, and another wishing to do away with it altogether.

TH®vfoflh iion _of views dominated Union politics in 1926. It Started quite innocently with an English

newspapet’scomipetltion for a new flag in which someone actually won a prize. The Union Cabinet, under Dr. Malan, took over the idea and appointed two committees to look into the matter. The issue soon became a political struggle with emotions stirred up.

Somq: proposals and counter-proposals for a new flag were incredible. The amazing thing is that out of the struggle there emerged a flag which nobody had visualized before the trouble started: the hid orange, white and blue of the Dutch Republic, now conveniently called the Van Riebeeck Flag because it was this flag which he planted at the Cape in 1652.

But this flag did not come unscathed out of the struggle which had given birth to it. Embodied in it was the compromise in the form of the three historical little flags in the middle: the Union Jack — now surprisingly considered as the symbol of the Cape and Natal — balanced by the old republican vierkleure of the Orange Free State and Transvaal.

This insertion looked a bit odd in the beginning and there were, at the time, not many people willing to forecast a long life for the new flag.

As often happens with compromises, however, in the end people not only began to like it, but actually felt a great affection for it, and in World War II many died for it.

There is no doubt that the Union Flag is of great beauty and the combination of colours most happy. For those who are sensitive to such things, it is also a flag with a long and great tradition of freedom and enterprise which witnessed the discovery of great parts of the world, including most of the interior of South Africa.

Both coat of arms and flag, therefore, represent the Union in a worthy manner at home and abroad. After 50 years one can say that they have really taken root and that they have now indeed become symbols around which the nation can rally.

V

PACE 4 THE NATAL DAILY NEWS UNION JUBILEE SUPPLEMENT, MAY 30, 1960

Home is the heart of a nation

ILA/HN

the largest furnishing organisation in the country.

Home is a loving wife and the hug of a child . . . the wag of a dog’s tail . . . the appetizing smell of supper . . . an easy chair in front of the fire . . . bed and the beat of rain against the windows . . . a sunlit lawn in summer . . . the clink of ice in a glass and the companionship of friends . . . laughter and tears, bedlam and peace, and the one place you wouldn’t change for all the money in theworld . . . Home is the heart of a nation.

Presented by

THE NATAL DAILY NEWS UNION JUBILEE SUPPLEMENT, MAY 30, 1960 PACE 5

STEPS THAT LED TO UNIFICATIONBy

Prof. L M . Thompson(Professor of History at the University

of Cape Town and author of ‘The Unifica- * tion of South Africa, 1902—1910’ (Oxford).)

TH E first important step towards the unification of South Africa was taken at a conference of

members of the governments of the South African Colonies, held in the Government Buildings in Pretoria on May 4, 1908. The Colonies represented included the Cape Colony, where the South African Party, led by John X . Merriman, F. S. Malan and J. W . Sauer and supported by most of the Afrikaner voters, had recently defeated Dr. L . S. Jameson’ s Progressive Party in an election; the Transvaal, where Het V olk, led by Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, had come into power in the first election under responsible government in March, 1907; the Orange River Colony, where the Orangia Unie, led by Abraham Fischer and J. B. M . Hertzog, had won a large majority in the first election under responsible government in November, 1907; and Natal, where there were no organized political parties and F. R . Moor was prime minister.

Ostensibly the conference had been summoned to deal with a complex tissue of railway and customs disputes, which were threatening to disrupt the five-year-old customs union and to cause increasingly serious tensions between the colonies.

In fact, Merriman Botha, Smuts and Fischer were determined to use it as the occasion to initiate a process which would lead to the creation of a South African Union.

The unification or federation of South Africa had for many years been an ideal of many responsible statesmen in Britain and in South Africa alike, but all previous attempts to achieveit had miscarried.

The federal project of Sir George Grey, British High Commissioner, was rejected by the British Government in 1858; that of Lord Carnarvon, British Colonial Secretary, was wrecked by his own precipitate action in authorizing the annexation of the Transvaal in 1877; and the efforts of Cecil Rhodes and Lord Milner had an imperialist purpose and a coercive spirit which made them anathema to many South Africans, especially Afrikaners.

IN 1907, at the request of the Jameson Government of the Cape Colony, Lord Selbome, who had

succeeded Milner as British High Commissioner, issued a memorandum which had been drafted by Lionel Curtis and other officials in the Transvaal.

The memorandum pointed out that if South Africa remained disunited her material prosperity would be retarded and the friction between the colonies over railway and customs disputes might lead to serious trouble: and it strongly advised South Africans to join in some sort qf union.

At first men like Merriman were suspicious of Selborne’s memorandum, fearing that some sort of imperialist coup was being planned. But by May, 1908, with the four colonies all possessing the same self-governing status, with anti-imperialist and predominantly Afrikaner parties in power in three of them, and with a well-disposed Liberal Government in office in London, it seemed to Botha, Smuts, Merriman Fischer and their friends the time was ripe for the creation of a South African Union, on the basis of equality and mutual respect between the White people of both Afrikaner and British descent.

The Pretoria conference did as it wished. It adopted a series of resolutions, declaring that ‘the best interests and the permanent prosperity of South Africa can only be assured by an early union, under the Crown of Great Britain, of the several self-governing Colonies,’ and calling upon the colonial parliaments to appoint delegates to a National Convention, ‘to consider and report on the most desirable form of South African Union and to prepare a draft constitution.’

These resolutions were approved and acted on by the four parliaments and the National Con­vention started work on December 12, 1908. Its members formed a representative cross-section of the White population of South Africa.

AMONG the Afrikaners were Botha, De la Rey, De Wet, Hertzog and Smuts, who only seven

years earlier had been leading republican commandos in the war against Britain, and Steyn, who as president of the Orange Free State had remained in the field till the bitter end; and among the delegates of British descent were Jameson, Farrar and Fitzpatrick, who had been prominently asso­ciated with the British cause.

Fifteen of them were members of the ruling parties in the Cape Colony, the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony; eight were members of the Opposition parties in those colonies; five were from Natal; and two were Cape Colony Independents, of whom Sir Henry de Villiers, Chief Justice of the Cape, was the natural and unopposed choice as President of the Convention.

First Union Premier — LOUIS BOTHA‘The comparatively short life of Louis

Botha has had within it such romance and sterling achievement as falls within the lot of few men,’ stated the Cape Argus on June 1, 1910

'At 35 he took command of his people’s armies in one of the greatest wars of modern times, and now, at 47, he has risen to the headship of a great new nation as Premier of United South Africa.’

There were also three delegates from Southern Rhodesia, but they were not given the right to vote in the Convention: Southern Rhodesia was not yet a self-governing colony, and nobody expected it to join the Union immediately, though it was pxnected to dq so later.

The Convention sat first in Durban and then in Cape Town, and before it adjourned on February 3, 1909, the delegates unanimouslyagreed upon a draft Constitution for South Africa. Their unanimity was a remarkable achievement.One reason for it was that the terrible

experience of the South African War was still fresh in the minds of all of them, so that they wereprepared to give as well as to take to make sucha calamity virtually impossible in the future. Another was that before the Convention met several of them had given careful thought to the problems it would have to tackle.

Smuts, in particular, had done a great dealof preliminary planning. First he had roughed out a tentative scheme of union; then he had sentcopies of his scheme to Merriman, De Villiers and Steyn for comment; next he had elaborated and amended it in the light of their replies; and finally, just before the Transvaal delegates left Pretoria for Durban, he had discussed it with them, accepted further amendments and gained their support.

WITHOUT such preparations the Convention might easily have foundered As it was, Smuts and his

Transvaal colleagues, both Afrikaner and British, formed a united team and set an example to the other delegations; and it was Smuts who, with Botha and the other Transvaalers solidly behind him and with the co-operation of men like De Villiers, Merriman and Steyn, was able to steer the Con­vention through many dangerous waters to its goal. '

Most of the decisions tne convention made had been envisaged by Smuts beforehand, in general outline if not in detail. The Constitution it drew up was for a South African Union, in which the central government would be supreme over the provincial governments, and not a federation.|iiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiii|

(Waking a land to (| nobler life (§ Bind closer race to race and state to state; =§ G o forward, one in purpose, faith and aim: 11 They lice the best who labour on, elate,H Through sacrifice and shame. §H By stamp and plough and furnace ye may wal^e Ë= A oast and federate land to nobler life: s| But what is all your work unless ye make |Ë An end to racial strife? =| JO H N R U N C IE |

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say, most of its clauses could be altered by simple majorities in both Houses of the Union Parliament — and not rigid.

The franchise laws of the four colonies were to remain in force until changed by the Union Parliament; but, to meet the wishes of the Cape any law diminishing the voting rights of the non- Europeans of the Cape Province would require the consent of two-thirds of the members of both Houses of Parliament in a joint sitting. it Jn a clause based on a motion moved by Heitzog, Dutch and English were placed on an equal footing -as the official languages of the Union with the same safeguard.

And, to meet the wishes of the Transvaal Pro­gressives, each parliamentary constituency in a province was to contain approximately the same number of voters; though a variation of up to 15 per cent either way was permitted to the delimita­tion commissions■VJTSARLY all those questions were extremely i v contentious; yet they were settled surprisingly amicably. But the Convention nearly broke down on a question of lesser importance — the location of the capital of the Union. This was only solved after long delays and much acrimonious debate by dividing the prize between Cape Town, Pretoria and Bloemfontein.

When the draft Constitution recommended by the Convention came before the colonial parliaments, its electoral clauses were attacked by men on the government side in the Cape Colony and the Orange River Colony, who insisted that they should be amended to give a definite and considerable advantage to the rural voters.

The Convention reassembled in Bloemfontein in May, 1909, to consider these and other proposals, and after a few days of crisis the delegates were able for a second time unanimously to sign a report which made comparatively few, and for the most part minor, changes in the previous one.

The main controversy was resolved by dropping proportional representation, which had been included in the first report for the election of members of the House of Assembly and Provincial Councils

The second report of the Convention was then submitted to the colonies for their approval. It was accepted without a division and with general enthusiasm by both Houses of the Parliaments of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony and by the Cape Legislative Council, and by a majority of 94'to two in the Cape' House of Assembly. In Natal it was accepted by a three to one majority in a referendum of the electorate.V p X T step was to have the Constitution enacted

by the British Parliament, which was the only body which then possessed the power to give legal effect to it.

Each of the colonies sent an official delegation to England to see that its wishes were fulfilled; and W. P. Schreiner, a former prime minister of the Cape, led a deputation of Coloured and African people to London to try to persuade the British Government to eliminate or reduce the colour-bar piovisions of the Constitution, which prevented non-Europeans from sitting in Parliament and gave no votes to non-Europeans in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and scarcely any to those in Natal.

Schreiner’s mission was a failure. The British Government held the view that it was its proper function to give effect to the wishes of the duly constituted authorities in the self-governing South African colonies, and the South Africa Bill which it introduced into the British Parliament was essentially the same as the Constitution which had been drafted and approved in South Africa.

Members of all parties in both Houses at West­minster said they regretted the colour-bar and hoped that it would soon be removed by the Union Parliament; but they passed the Bill without amendment and it received the Royal assent on September 20, 1909.

On May 31, 1910, the jSouth Africa Act came into force. The four colonies then merged into the Union of South Africa. Their governments and parliaments disappeared, and the first Government of the Union was sworn in, with Louis Botha as Prime Minister, Smuts, Sauer, Malan and Hertzog holding important offices.

THE general election was held in September, and it gave the Government a clear-cut majority

over all other members in the House of Assembly.The founders of the Union were well aware

they had left many problems unsolved, notably the problem of the relations between the White and the non-White peoples of South Africa. They hoped that in creating a strong central parliament they were providing their successors with an instrument with which they would be able to handle such problems efficiently in the future.

Working with the tragedy of the South African War fresh in their minds, they regarded it as their first duty to lay firm foundations for the growth of a united White South African nation.

As Smuts put it: ‘The greatest and most pressing need of South Africa to-day is the welding of the various sections of its White people into one compact nationality inspired by one common per­vading national spirit.’ He and his fellow members of the ■ National Convention believed they had succeeded.

De Wet said on December 12, 1908: To-day it does not matter what race we belong to .- . . as long as we are South Africans’ ; and Fitzpatrick echoed him with the assurance that they were making ‘a final peace’ between Boer and Briton.

III

IP A C E 6 THE NATAL DAILY NEWS UNION JUBILEE SUPPLEMENT, MAY 30, 1960

THE NATAL DAILY NEWS UNION JUBILEE SUPPLEMENT, MAY 30, 1960 PACE 7j

Natal planked for Union

in referendumResult .

For . . . i . . . 11,121Against ..................................................3,701

g A C H of the colonies that joined the Union hadown special interests and problems, but the

case of Natal was strikingly different from all the others. This was largely because of the composition of her population and her electorate. Her Native population was relatively the largest, forming four- tilths oi the total. She was the only colony with more Indians than Whites. And she was the only colony with many more Whites of British origin than Afrikaners.

With a franchise confined for all practical purposes to White men, this meant that Natal

were controlled by people who had beenB^ tain. ° r whose parents or grandparents had been born there; and most of them were self­

consciously British in sentiment.There is no doubt that Natal would have stayed

° ut, . oi. . tlJe Union to develop on her own as a distinctively British colony if her government and parliament and electorate had thought it was possible to do so. 5

AS it was, Natal’s capacity to stand on her own feet was limited by two factors. One was

economic. Natal did not have a self-reliant economy, but was largely dependent on her share of the trade between Europe and the Witwatersrand, from which she reaped considerable profits.

There was a serious depression in South Africa after the war of 1899-1902, and Natal was

har(í hit' Her White populationdecreased, her volume of trade declined; and there were deficits iuriiye of the seven years ending in June, 1909. In these circumstances most Natal businessmen and politicians were unwilling to risk the prospect of standing outside a union of the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony and the Cape Colony, for such a union might put up customs barriers against Natal and channel the Witwaters­rand trade through the Cape ports and Lourenco Marques, leaving Natal more impoverished than ever.

Secondly, the Natal Native Rebellion of 1906, in which 30 Whites and 3,000 Natives were killed, and its aftermath in the arrest of the Zulu chief Dmizulu and his trial on charges of treason, shook the confidence of the White people of Natal in their capacity to maintain order and security without being able to rely on aid from the rest of South Africa.

Moreover, there were disagreements between the Natal Government and the British Government over the treatment of Native rebels and of Dinizulu, and these temporarily weakened the Natal electorate’s sense of attachment to Britain.

Consequently, the Natal delegates — F. R Moor the Prime Minister, C. J. Smythe, the former Prime Minister, E. M. Greene, T. Hyslop and W. B. Morcom — went to the National Convention reconciled to the idea of a combination of the four colonies for the sake of Natal’s material interests and security, but hoping that the constitution would be federal and rigid, so that Natal would retain complete control over such matters as the administration of justice, civil rights and education.

Th e y soon found, however, that that hope was unrealizable. At the outset they were confronted

with resolutions moved by Merriman to make South Africa a close Union. Their own federal proposals gained no support from any of the other delegates, and Merriman’s resolutions were adopted.

They then fell back on the hope that when the convention dealt with the composition and powers of the provincial governments it would go some way towards meeting their wishes, but once again they were disappointed. The scheme of provincial government that was eventually adopted left no loophole for provincial autonomy.

The administrators were to be appointed by the central Government; the Provincial Councils were only empowered to make ordinances on matters which, with the exception of school education, were of minor importance; and even then, no ordinance was to become law without the consent of the central Government.

Later on, the convention also decided that the very existence of the Provincial Councils, and of their limited powers, could be changed by an ordinary law passed by bare majorities by both Houses of the Union Parliament.

WHEN the convention’s first report was published in February, 1909, it was strongly assailed by

the Natal Press, which demanded that the provinces be given greater powers. In the Natal Parliament a large number of amendments were moved, but the convention delegates opposed nearly all of them, feeling they were committed by their signatures to the convention’s report and realizing that they

I8 5 3 - J u l v 5 - ' R h o d e s WAS BORN

1910 - J u l yfiROOTE ScHUUR.Hi s f o r m e r h o m e , WAS ACCEPTED BV'

the u n io n Go v e r n m e n t for its

P r e m i e r ^.

NEW SOUTH AFRICA WAS BORN

The National Convention was the co-operation o( many of the greatest names in our history, and from their common statesmanship the new South Africa was born.’

• — G E N E R A L S M U T S

Success will depend on the children

would be unlikely to extract any major concessions from the convention at its next session.

Nevertheless, a number of amendments were carried by the Natal Parliament, designed to safe­guard the material interests of Natal and to make the constitution somewhat more difficult to alter. But in the final session of the convention the Natal delegates failed to have any significant amend­ments accepted, though they did get a few changes in matters of detail.

By that time the Natal Government had yielded to the demand that the decision whether Natal should enter the Union should be made, not by Parliament, as was being done in the other colonies, but by the voters in a referendum.

The anti-Unionist campaign was organized by a Natal league, comprising members of the Natal Labour Party and colonists of conservative views who feared that the Union would be dominated by Afrikaners. They had the support of the ‘Natal TOtMsF and the ‘Natal Advertiser,’ and held a number r of sttcceísïuT meetings; especially in Maritzburg. But the Government, most members of Parliament, and the ‘Times of Natal’ and the ‘Natal Mercury’ were for accepting the draft constitution. They argued that to do otherwise would spell economic disaster, and the Natal League produced no convincing answer to that argument.

THE referendum was held on June 10, 1909, and 11,121 voted in favour of joining the Union

in terms of the draft constitution, and 3,701 against; so. that three-quarters of the votes cast were in favour. There were majorities for Union in every constituency.

So Natal joined the Union, not so much because her voters shared the ideal of Anglo - Afrikaner nationhood which was widespread in the other colonies, but rather because they did not see how Natal could prosper as a separate colony in the face of a Union of the other three.

L. M. THOMPSONmiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

This was one of the disappointments

W T E of the Cape expected hopefully that the » T liberal franchise provisions of our laws would

spread into the other provinces, where the vote was denied to Natives and Coloured people.

W e thought the example of the Cape, with its contented and peaceful Native populations, would convince our fellow-citizens in other provinces that they should follow our example. This did not happen, h was not the influence of the old Cape that spread but that of the Transvaal and Free State where, in some quarters, Natives were looked on as scarcely human and only fit to serve the W hite man. That to me has been one of the great disappointments of Union.

The Cape so prized its liberal franchise that it took pains to see that it was protected in the A ct of Union. But for the protection of the provision in that A ct that a two-thirds majority of the members of both Houses of Parliament is required for its amendment, the Cape would not have entered Union.

If anyone needs to be convinced of this, let him read the Cape Hansards of 1908 and 1909 which reported the speeches delivered from all sides of the House in the debates on the draft Act of Union. I am one of the few survivors of that Parliament, and I lay claim to know.

— William Duncan Baxter in ‘ Turn Back the Pages’ (Juta) 1954. Duncan Baxter, who was elected to the old Cape House of Assembly in 1908, died in Cape Town on January 7, 1960, aged 91.

6ir John (afterwards Lord) de Villiers

T ^ H E Rt. Hon. Sir John Henry de Villiers •*- elected President of the South African National

Convention by the unanimous, vote of the delegates:‘T he success or otherwise of the Union which

has just been established will mainly depend upon those who are now the children of South Africa.. May they, as they grow up, realize this responsi­bility, and may each of them contribute his or her share towards making this a great, happy, prosperous and united country.’

Sir John penned these lines at Wynberg House, Wynberg, on April 30, 19,10.

A cartoon of 1910 : Botha embarrassed by the hobble skirt o f Hertzogism.

PACE 8 THE NATAL DAILY NEWS UNION JUBILEE SUPPLEMENT, MAY 30, 1960

“ ...it is desirable for the welfare

and future progress of South A frica ...”

With these words, on October 13 t h , 1908, the Rt. Hon. John X . Merriman set before the South African National Convention at Durban, the motion that South Africa be united under one Government. Union was at hand.

Men o f the Old Mutual — builders o f our nationSixty-three years before John X. Merriman made

his historic proposal, the Old Mutual was founded in South Africa.Truly, it can be said that the Old Mutual is a part o f the fabric o f our South Africa; as much a part o f our land as the veld, the koppies and our rocky shores. Some o f the most illustrious o f our nation’s builders have had close links with the Old Mutual and have given their time and their energy in helping to build the Old Mutual to what it is today. Through such men as John X. Merriman, John Fairbairn, J. W. Sauer, C. W. H. Kohler and N. C. Havenga— all Directors, or Local Directors, in their time— the Old Mutual has been linked with many outstanding achievements in our national life.In honouring these men this year, the Old Mutual honours, too, all those men o f vision and goodwill who laid the foundations o f Union.

EENHEID

UNION

THE RT. HON. JOHN X. MERRIMAN, one of the ‘Fathers of Union’, Premier of the Cape, Director of the Old Mutual from 1894 to 1924, convened the National Convention held at Durban that led to Union. He proposed the resolution that South Africa be united under one Government, played a leading part in drafting the South Africa Act, and served South Africa as a parliamentarian for more than half a century.

JQHN FAIRBAIRN, ‘Father of the Cape Parliament’, ‘Father of the Cape Press’ and Founder of theOld Mutual, of which he was Chairman for sixteen years, did more than anyone to secure parliamentary institutions for the Cape. He was one of the founders of the free press in South Africa and editor of the country's first newspaper.

THE HON. J. W. SAUER, a delegate to the National Convention and Minister of Railways and Har­bours in the first Union Government, played a large part in the pioneering work which led to our present-day railway network, linking up all points of South Africa in one unified system. He was also a Director of the Old Mutual from 1907 to 1913.

Dr. C. W. H. KOHLER was a director of the Society for 35 years. At a time when the Cape wine farmers were faced with certain ruin, he over­came all obstacles with his perseverance and played a leading part in the establishment of the K.W.V., which has assured the future of the South African grape and wine industry.

THE HON. N. C. H AVENG A was a member of the local Board of the Old Mutual in the O.F.S, for nine years. He gave many years of his life to the service of South Africa both in and out of Parliament and is, perhaps, best remembered today as a most eminent Minister of Finance in which capacity he earned the respect of all sections of the community.

In the tradition established by m en like th ese, the p resen t generation o f Men o f the Old M utual, as w ell as fu tu re generations, will continue also to be

Builders o f th e Nation.

Issued on the occasion of Fifty Years of Union by

THE OLD MUTUALS O U T H A F R I C A N M U T U A L L I F E A S S U R A N C E S O C I E T Y

S O U T H A F R I C A ’ S O L D E S T A N D L A R G E S T L I F E A S S U R A N C E S O C I E T Y

PN839S»-!.

THE NATAL DAILY NEWS UNION JUBILEE SUPPLEMENT, MAY 30, 1960 PACE 9

Durban gave the National Convention delegates a great civic

welcome in 1908: the historic scene in the Town Hall is

described by the Hon. Thomas Boydell who gives his impressionsof the leaders he saw there.

I was conscious of being in the presence of great menWH E N the Kenilworth Castle left Cape Town

for Durban on October 7, 1908, it had seven builders on board; two more joined at Port Elizabeth and one at East London; three had gone by train — 13 in all.

At Durban they were joined by eight from the Transvaal and five each from Natal and the Orange River Colony. They were not ordinary builders, that is to say they did not build houses, schools or churches.

They were meeting to tackle the biggest building project ever attempted below the Sahara — the building of a nation — and the result? The Union of South Africa.

The material they had to work with was the four colonies; plus a strong amalgam of sin­cerity and patriotic determination.

Owing to the insuper­able p r o b l e m s of customs and railways the four 'powers that be’ decided that the best solution would be to weld the colonies into a union or a federation.

On the first business day of the National Convention, John X.Merriman moved that the delegates plump for Union. After a long pause, General Smuts seconded. Natal favoured federation, but Mr. W. Morcom, one of its delegates did not push his motion to the vote. So, from the word go, the spirit of Union took charge; and kept its control until the task was finished two years later.

Durban’s Mayor, Mr. Charlie Henwood, at 11 a.m. on October 12, welcomed the 30 convention delegates in the Town Hall before a wildly cheering audience of 2,400. Among them was a man of 25 who had arrived from England five years previously. He was already showing an active interest in the public affairs of his adopted country — and after 52 years he still is.

It was a memorable occasion for me to see in the flesh men whose names a few short years before had made history and world-wide headlines. Men whose day-by-day activities made my flesh creep as the tide of the South African War ebbed and flowed. Generals Botha and Smuts; also those rugged generals, De La Rey and De Wet, whose bravery and elusive guerrilla warfare tactics were epics. Another name which had fired my earlier boyhood imagination was Dr. Jim — a popular, though discredited, hero, whose name, like Dick Turpin’s, inspired a thrill.

Here was a big surprise. As youngsters we pictured Dr. Jameson as an upstanding, swash­buckling buccaneer with a 10-gallon hat and covered with bandoliers, plus all the dash and glamour of to-day’s Brick Bradford.

There he sat, easily the most physically puny delegate of them all.

What a contrast in size and appearance the delegates made! The burly Boers, with their loose- fitting clothes, and the small-of-stature Britishers, like Sir Lionel Phillips and Sir George Parrer, who both looked as if they had come straight from Savile Row.

But clothes or no clothes, I was conscious of being in the presence of great men; men who had made, and were still making, history. I was also conscious of being in at the conception of a nation. I realized I was witnessing perhaps the most historic event in the history of Southern Africa.

The last thought in my head was that in a few short years — four to be precise — I was toplay a 'humble' part in the building of the super­structure by being for 28 years a member of the Union Parliament, including five as a Cabinet Minister.

In his speech of welcome, the Mayor likened the difficulties the delegates would have to face to the climbing of a mountain. In their ascent to the top, if one route failed they must, he said, try another and yet another until eventually they reached the summit and could look down on a united and prosperous South Africa.

The spirit of Union was even then strongly in the air, because the Mayor’s peroration was acclaimed.

Then followed that silver-tongued, brilliant orator, John X. Merriman. In an oration, he thanked the Mayor and the town on behalf of the delegates for their welcome.

After stressing how each of the four colonies had a different fiut useful contribution to make to the common cause, he emphasized they could only succeed in their nation-building task ‘just as far as they kept their eyes on the great ideal before them.’

When the applause died down, there was loud and incessant calls for Botha.' But the general, while showing appreciation, shook his head as much as to say we must keep to the scheduled programme.

At the conclusion of the public ceremony the delegates adjourned to the Council Chamber to start their deliberations. After unanimously electing Sir Henry de Villiers chairman, they decided that all proceedings should be secret. Then, behind closed doors, the battle for Union began. It was not by any means all plain sailing; several difficult hurdles had to be surmounted. Equal language rights initiated by General Hertzog surprisingly proved the easiest. The two most contentious were the non-European franchise and where the capital was to be.

At times, feelings ran high. On one occasion, Sir Henry de Villiers deplored the tone and tempo of the debate. On another occasion, General Botha was almost prepared to wreck the convention unless the capital was in the Transvaal.

When Natal’s Prime Minister, Frederick Moor, moved that votes should be given to women because ‘it was a crying injustice that Natives in the Cape could vote and yet- all White women were dis­franchised,’ General de Wet was indignant. He said if this was carried he would ‘resign his port­folio and stump the country against women’s suffrage.’

It may be of interest to mention that the opening day of the convention was the ninth anni­versary of the first shot to be fired in the South African War. Incidentally, it was also the anniversary of Paul Kruger’s birthday.

Once to every manand nation

IN 1908, when unification of the four provinces became the leading topic of debate throughout the

land, these words, written 60 years previously by the American poet Lowell, were commended to the attention of the politicians and people of South Africa :

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.

In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side . . .

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,

Ere the doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?

When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast

Runs a thrill o f joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west.

So the eoil’ s triumph sendeih, with a terror and a chill,

Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill.

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along.

Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash o f right or wrong,

New occasions leach new duties; time makes ■ ancient good uncouth;They must upward still and onward, who would

keep abreast o f truth.L o before us gleam her camp fires! W e ourselves

must pilgrims be;Nor attempt the future’ s portal with the past’ s

blood-rusted key . ’IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Wisdom solved the capital question

T ^ O R a month the National Convention hesitated over the capital question, and it actually began

to look as if on that really minor issue the whole plan of Union would come to shipwreck.

‘Then there came to me the foolish thought that we must follow the wisdom of Solomon and divide the child.

‘This inspiration of mine,’ he said with a twinkle, T imparted to the President, Sir Henry de Villiers, and it was immediately accepted by him and sub­mitted to the Convention.

‘Perhaps if my share in that matter had been known in the past, I should never have been elected member for 17 years of a Pretoria constituency,’ — General Smuts, as recorded by G. H. Wilson in 'Gone Down the Years' (Howard Timmins).

Designed by Sir Herbert Baker, the Union Buildings, Pretoria, were completed in 1913

at a cost o f about £1,180,000.

Collection Number: A1132 Collection Name: Patrick LEWIS Papers, 1949-1987

PUBLISHER: Publisher: Historical Papers Research Archive, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Location: Johannesburg ©2016

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