"One of the strongest reasons in favor of separation and the setting up of a South African republic is to get solidarity between the English and the Dutch. I cannot help feeling that our interests are being constantly subordinated to those of Great Britain. My firm conviction is that the freer we are, and the more independent of Great Britain we become, the more we shall favor a close co-operation with her. We do not dislike the British as such but we do object to the Britisher coming out as a subject of Great Britain with a superior manner and looking upon the Dutchman as a dependent or a subordinate. There will be a conflict so long as they do not recognize our heroes, traditions and history. In short, we are determined to have a republic of South Africa and England must recognize it. To oppose it is fatal."
"Will you fight for it?" I asked.
"I hardly think that it will come to force," said the General. "It must prevail by reason and education. It may not come in one year but it will come before many years."
Hertzog's feeling is not shared, as he intimated, by the majority of South Africans and this includes many Dutchmen. An illuminating analysis of the Nationalist point of view was made for me by Sir Thomas Smartt, the leader of the Unionist Party and a virile force in South African politics. He brought the situation strikingly home to America when he said:
"The whole Nationalist movement is founded on race. Like the Old Guard, the Boer may die but it is hard for him to surrender. His heart still rankles with the outcome of the Boer War. Would the American South have responded to an appeal to arms in the common cause made by the North in 1876? Probably not. Before your Civil War the South only had individual states. The Boers, on the other hand, had republics with completely organized and independent governments. This is why it will take a long time before complete assimilation is accomplished. A second Boer War is unthinkable."
We can now return to Smuts and find out just how he achieved the miracle by which he not only retained the Premiership but spiked the guns of the opposition.
When I left Capetown he was in a corner. The Nationalist majority not only made his position precarious but menaced the integrity of Union, and through Union, the whole Empire. For five months,—the whole session of Parliament,—he held his ground. Every night when he went to bed at Groote Schuur he did not know what disaster the morrow would bring forth. It was a constant juggle with conflicting interests, ambitions and prejudices. He was like a lion with a pack snapping on all sides.
Now you can see why he sat in that front seat in the House morning, noon and night. He placated the Labourites, harmonized the Unionists, and flung down the gauntlet openly to the Nationalists. Throughout that historic session, and although much legislation was accomplished, he did not permit the consummation of a single decisive division. It was a triumph of parliamentary leadership.
When the session closed in July,—it is then mid-winter in Africa,—he was still up against it. The Nationalist majority was a phantom that dogged his official life and political fortunes. The problem now was to take out sane insurance against a repetition of the trial and uncertainty which he had undergone.
Fate in the shape of the Nationalist Party played into his hands. Under the stimulation of the Nationalists a Vereeniging Congress was called at Bloenfontein late last September. The Dutch word Vereeniging means "reunion." Hertzog and Tielman Roos, the co-leader of the secessionists, believed that by bringing the leading representatives of the two leading parties together the appeal to racial pride might carry the day. Smuts did not attend but various members of his Cabinet did.