BRITAIN, SOUTH AFRICA, AND THE HIGH COMMISSION TERRITORIES: AN OLD CONTROVERSY REVISITED

Abstract

This article revisits the controversy surrounding the protection that Britain accorded the high commission territories on the advent of South African unification in 1910. Instead of incorporating these regions into the new Union from the start, the imperial government retained responsibility for them and further issued a schedule stipulating the terms on which transfer could take place later. The historiographical controversy centres around the respective roles of the high commissioner, the Liberal government, and the African inhabitants of these regions in formulating Britain's policy on this question. The present author agrees with Ronald Hyam that London made the decision to withhold the areas from the Union and that this decision has proved of critical importance to the welfare of the people concerned. This article, however, emphasizes that in the context of 1909 the question of transfer did not appear to possess the importance that it later took on, for all statesmen assumed that, sooner or later, the Territories would be transferred. What seemed more important at the time was the schedule governing transfer. This was primarily the work of the high commissioner – Lord Selborne. Though not without a trace of old-fashioned paternalism, his proposals display a modern enthusiasm for bureaucratic state building.