resources of the country and of trade. The progress in agriculture and in mining was marked; a beginning was made in manufac- tures. The benefit of unification in this respect was apparent. That benefit was even more apparent in the relations of S.A. with the outside world; she spoke with one voice and as a power- ful unit. The new position which S.A. had acquired, in common with the other British Dominions, was seen when as a separate entity she was represented at the Peace Conference in Paris and her delegates signed the Treaty of Versailles.
Outside the Union the period under review was chiefly notice- able for two things: the disappearance of German sovereignty accompanied by the transfer of the administration of ex-German S.W. Africa to the Union, and the decision to terminate the government of Rhodesia by the Chartered Company, in response to the demand of Rhodesians for self-government.
The Union had been brought about by the recognition by the leaders of the Dutch and British communities that S.A. was one country, not several, and that in every part
rs ^ ^ t ^ le ' nterests f the two race s were so intermixed
Ministry. tnat they could not be separated without harm to both. Lord Gladstone, the first governor-general of the Union, had called upon Gen. Botha, the Prime Minister of the Transvaal, to form the first Ministry under the Union. 1 This Gen. Botha had done and this Ministry came into existence on May 31 1910, the day on which the Union was proclaimed (being the eighth anniversary of the close of the Anglo-Boer War). General Botha's Ministry was formed from members of the expiring Cabinets of the various colonies, but while it included Natal ministers and strong Boer partisans it was not a coalition ministry. The first general election, held on Sept. 15 1910, was fought on party lines and was hotly contested. It resulted in a majority for the " South African " party, that led by Gen. Botha, of 13 over all other parties, though Gen. Botha himself was defeated at Pretoria East by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick and a seat had to be found for him by means of a by-election. In the first session of the Union Parliament (opened by the Duke of Con- naught on Nov. 4) Gen. Botha had the support not only of his own party, but of that of the four Labour members elected by Rand constituencies and of several of the Natal members of whom 13 out of 17 had been returned as Independents. The opposition, known as the Unionist party (and mainly British) was led by Dr. Jameson, who was created a baronet in Jan. 1911. Owing to ill health Jameson resigned the leadership in April 1912, and was succeeded by Sir Thomas Smartt, an ex-Cape minister and, like Jameson, a medical man. In Oct. 1912 Jameson resigned his seat for Albany (Graham's Town) and retired from Parliament.
General Botha's Cabinet was of a rather heterogeneous char- acter. Among its members were Gen. Smuts, Mr. H. C. Hull, Mr. Jacobus Wilhelmus Sauer, Mr. Henry Burton, Mr. Abraham Fischer and Gen. Hertzog. They were divided on personal and provincial as well as progressive and retrogressive lines. General Smuts, Minister of the Interior, did not at first figure very prominently, but was the Prime Minister's right-hand man. Mr. Hull (b. 1860), after being in the Cape civil service, had practised at the bar, served in the war of 1899-1902 and was afterwards Treasurer of the Transvaal, and he entered the Union Cabinet as Minister of Finance. Mr. Sauer had been 30 years a member of the Cape House of Assembly and had frequently held office. In Gen. Botha's Cabinet he was Minister of Railways and Harbours and chairman of the Railways and Harbours
1 Mr. J. X. Merriman, as Prime Minister of the Cape, the oldest colony in S.A., had some claim to be called upon to form the first Union Ministry, but his claims were passed over. He declined to serve under Gen. Botha. It appears, however, from the biog- raphies of Jan Hofmeyr and of ex-President Steyn that both Botha and Merriman were prepared to serve under Steyn. Steyn was an invalid, and his doctors forbade him to entertain the idea of taking office. The ex-President was against a coalition Ministry, among other reasons because he feared that had Dr. Jameson been in the Cabinet he would have pressed for the inclusion of Rhodesia in the Union. While Steyn had favoured the Union movement he was not prepared even in 1910 to accept its full consequences. See J. H. Hofmeyr's Onze Jan. (1913) and Van der Merwe's " Life "' of Steyn (in Dutch 1921).
Board, and thus head of the largest revenue producing depart- ment of State. Mr. Fischer and Gen. Hertzog represented the extreme element among the Boers. They were both from the Orange Free State, of which (as the Orange River Colony) Mr. Fischer had been Prime Minister. In the Union Cabinet he became Minister of Lands and Gen. Hertzog Minister of Justice.
The first session of Parliament was devoted mainly to putting the Union machinery into working order. It was not until to- wards the close of 1912 that Gen. Hertzog publicly Education abandoned the principles on which the Union had Contro- been established, though there was no doubt of his versles - belief that the Dutch community had a prescriptive right to dominance in S. Africa. The most controversial issue considered in the 1911-2 session arose out of the Education Acts of the former Orange River Colony (see 20.160), where, during its brief period of self-government, Gen. Hertzog as Minister of Education had enforced bi-lingualism in the state schools. By the Act establishing the Union education " other than higher education " had been left in the control of the provincial councils for a period of five years, after which Parliament was free to take what action it pleased. In the meantime it could only advise. A select committee on which the S.A. and Unionist parties were equally represented considered the subject and on April 17 presented a majority report recommending that instruction up to Standard IV. should be given in and through the " home language," with the optional use, on the demand of parents, of the other language, and that above Standard. IV. freedom of choice in the medium of instruction should be left to the parents; also that teachers should be free to qualify in either language (English or Dutch). This was a reversal of Gen. Hertzog's policy, but though he disliked this compromise it was accepted by the Union Parliament (April 24). During 1911-2 the pro- vincial councils of the Transvaal, Free State and the Cape passed ordinances adopting the compromise, though with some modi- fications in favour of Dutch. This virtually ended the language controversy as far as schools were concerned, and the provin- cial councils taking a liberal view of their duties, their control over elementary and secondary education was continued even after the lapse of the five years provided in the Union Act. But Gen. Hertzog's position was much shaken during the con- troversy over the medium of instruction. The success of an action for slander (Aug. 1911) brought against him by Mr. Wm. Fraser Free State inspector of schools whom Hertzog had dismissed in 1909 caused much scandal, which was intensified by the success (Nov. 1911) of another slander action brought against Jiim, the second plaintiff being Dr. Ward, president of the O.F.S. medical council. The situation was rendered piquant by the fact that Hertzog was Minister of Justice. He tendered his resignation, but Gen. Botha, not wishing to alienate the Boer extremists, refused to accept it.
Having brought about a settlement of the language question in elementary schools the Union Parliament was called upon to deal with higher education. The only university in S.A. at the time of the Union was that of the Cape of Good Hope, founded in 1873, with its seat at Cape Town. It was an examining body, with affiliated colleges. Demands for teaching universities had grown up and the Union Government had to deal with an offer of 500,000, half of this sum being a bequest by Sir Julius Wern- her, the other half being given by Messrs. Alfred and Otto Beit. This money it was desired should go to establish a national university on the Groote Schuur estate, near Cape Town. A bill to give effect to this proposal was introduced into Parliament in the session of 1913. It met with much criticism and was with- drawn, a strong University Commission being appointed in Nov. 1913 to enquire into the subject. Its report, issued in 1914, is a valuable document, dealing fully with the lines of possible development, though the Commission was fain to acknowledge that the many vested interests constituted an " almost in- solvable " problem. It recommended two universities one at Cape Town and one at Pretoria, to one or other of which the existing university colleges would be attached. This recommen- dation provoked almost as much criticism as had the bill of 1913.
