Chapter I

Unification has always been an ideal of South African statesmen, and twice, at least, it has been within measurable distance of realisation. In 1858 Sir George Grey, who had federated the New Zealand settlements despite the intensity of their local jealousies, promulgated the first practical scheme of South African Federation. So well had he ruled the Kaffir tribes on the eastern border of Cape Colony, that the Free State, weary of warfare with the Basutos, made overtures for a federal alliance, and the proposition of the Volksraad was actually laid before the Cape Parliament by Sir George Grey, before the opinion of the British Ministry in regard to his scheme of federation on New Zealand lines and their sanction for the course actually pursued had been received. Sir George Grey was recalled; though on his arrival off the British coast he found that he had been reinstated by a new Secretary of State, the delay led to the loss of an excellent opportunity for carrying through a measure comparable in importance with the Act which brought about the legislative union of Upper and Lower Canada.

HON. SIR W. F. HELY HUTCHINSON,

Governor of Cape Colony.]

For many years after the failure of Sir George Grey's attempt, unification was a little-regarded counsel of perfection. It is true that the Duke of Buckingham, Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Disraeli Ministry of 1868, admitted that it would be politic to consider seriously any further overtures for a federal alliance from the Boers, but the Free State was no longer in the mood to make them, our annexation of Basutoland being resented, and the discovery of diamonds on its western border in 1867 having created fresh causes of irritation. When the second Disraeli Ministry came into power, and Lord Carnarvon, who had collaborated with the Canadian Fathers of Federation (he himself may be described as the Godfather of the Dominion), undertook the charge of colonial affairs, the plan proposed by Sir Henry Barkly for a confederation of South Africa, which should be the logical consequence of the grant of autonomy to Cape Colony, was cordially received. Unfortunately the Free State held aloof, the Cape Ministry remembered only too well the object lessons in anti-Imperialism received from Lord Carnarvon's predecessors, and a _grain de sable_--the tactlessness of Mr. Froude--caused a vast amount of friction. Even then, but for the revival at home of the belief that political quietism and a policy of non-interference with Colonial affairs would enable Great Britain to retain the commercial hegemony of the world, Lord Carnarvon's hopes might have been realised; for he had grasped the all-important fact that South Africa was, and must always remain, a single-minded community, whenever the native question was discussed, and that this unity of opinion was a stronger motive for unification than any or all of those political or commercial considerations which had already led to the making of the Dominion, and seemed certain, sooner or later, to bring about the federation of the Australian Colonies.

In more recent years three men of commanding influence have, each in his own way, attempted to realise the ideal of unity. Mr. Kruger's attempt to lay the foundation of a Dutch confederacy, the future greatness of which would have been based (can we doubt it?) on some form of slavery, may be dismissed as an instance of the adage, _corruptio optimi pessima_. Mr. Cecil Rhodes worked for a federation on the model of the United States; since the Cape was half Dutch, the Transvaal was to be made half British, and the settlement of Rhodesia was to insure the preponderance of Imperial ideas in the Union of the future. He saw that the Boers must be persuaded to co-operate, and for that reason he allied himself to Mr. Hofmeyr, the unofficial leader of the Boer party in Cape Colony, who also had his federal scheme. Had the two Boer leaders agreed to work loyally together in their disloyalty, it is conceivable that they might have brought about an act of federation in the Boer interest, and have constitutionally demanded from Great Britain the removal of her garrisons from South Africa, a naval station at Simon's Bay being conceded in order to retain the essential measure of Imperial protection. Such, at any rate, seems to have been Mr. Hofmeyr's dream. But, instead of being content to widen and deepen the influence of the Afrikander Bond until such time as the term "suzerainty" should have been interpreted by the heirs to Mr. Gladstone's South African policy, Mr. Kruger decided to make use of his hoarded armaments, and the future of his great raid involved the failure of Mr. Hofmeyr's long-meditated plan of--shall we call it?--constitutional disloyalty. Nevertheless the twofold ideal of unity, which inspired the acts both of those who deserved and those who did not deserve to succeed, has survived all these vicissitudes, and was never more strong than at the present moment. Indeed it is obvious that not only the British and Dutch inhabitants of South Africa, but also all responsible politicians and competent publicists in Canada and Australia, are now of opinion that complete solutions of the three South African problems of primary importance--the settlement of the native question, agricultural development, and railway administration--can only be obtained through a Federal Parliament, a body which would combine a detailed knowledge of local conditions with the power of seeing each problem as a whole, and devising a general solution.