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V. Smuts and the Decision of the Liberal Government to grant Responsible Government to the Transvaal, January and February 19061

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2010

Ronald Hyam
Ronald Hyam
Affiliation:
Magdalene College, Cambridge
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Extract

On 31 March 1905 the Unionist Government issued Letters Patent granting to the Transvaal a representative constitution, known almost at once, and to history, as the Lyttelton Constitution. This constitution never came into force; it was abrogated in February 1906 by the new Liberal Government, who decided, at a dramatic Cabinet meeting on 8 February, to grant responsible government instead. Until the opening of the government and private archives within the last few years, the accounts of the part played by the Liberal prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, at this Cabinet, and of the encounter between him and General J. C. Smuts, who had come to England on a mission to persuade the Liberal Government to grant responsible government, have necessarily been largely based on hearsay. Something approaching a ‘mythology’ has therefore tended to surround these events; this ‘mythology’ views the Smuts' mission as ‘the climax in the drama of the South African settlement’; it assumes Smuts ‘convinced’ Campbell-Bannerman immediate responsible government should be granted, and that the prime minister then persuaded the Cabinet. This paper is an attempt to carry a stage further the ‘de-mythologizing’ begun by recent historians with partial access to the relevant papers.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , 1965 , pp. 380 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1965

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References

2 See, for example, Pyrah, G. B., Imperial Policy and South Africa, 1902-1910 (1955), pp. 164-5, 171–3.Google Scholar The author was able to see the original Colonial Office records only down to 1902.

3 See Hancock, W. K., Smuts, Vol. 1.Google ScholarThe Sanguine Years 1870-1919 (1962), Mansergh, P. N. S., South Africa, 1906-1961 (1962)Google Scholar, and May, G. H. L. Le, British Supremacy in South Africa, 1899-1907 (1965).Google Scholar None of these authors was able to see the Cabinet memoranda or the papers of the colonial secretary, Lord Elgin.

4 Millin, S. G., General Smuts, I (1936), p. 214.Google Scholar

5 I am most grateful to the Rt Hon. Sir Henry Willink, Master of Magdalene College, for allowing me to see and to quote his note of this conversation of 22 May 1944.

6 , Hancock, op. cit. p. 215Google Scholar.

7 Sir Kennedy, John, The Business of War (1957), pp. 316–17Google Scholar, records these remarks by Smuts made on 19 Nov. 1943.

8 , Millin, op. cit. p. 214Google Scholar.

9 Riddell, Lord, More Pages from My Diary (1934), pp. 144–5Google Scholar, 27 Apr. 1913.

10 Spender, J. A., The Life of the Rt Hon. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 11 (1923), pp. 238–9Google Scholar.

11 Campbell-Bannerman Papers, B[ritish] M[useum] Add. MSS. 41239/36, Lloyd George to Campbell-Bannerman, 9 Feb. 1906; 41212/310, Carrington to Campbell-Bannerman, 8 Feb. 1906.

12 Papers of the 9th earl of Elgin, Broomhall, Dunfermline. I am most grateful to the present earl of Elgin and to Lord Bruce for permission to see and to quote these papers.

13 P[ublic] Rfecord] O[fHce], Cabinet Office Records, CAB. 37/81 and 82; Colonial Office Records, CO. 291/87, 88, 95 and 111 (Transvaal); and CO. 879/91 and 92 (Confidential Print).

14 Eflgin] P[apers], Selborne to Elgin, private telegram, 28 Dec. 1905.

15 E.P., Elgin to Selborne, private, 22 Feb. 1906.

16 P.R.O. Colonial Office Confidential Print, African (South), no. 837, CO. 879/92; extensively quoted in , Pyrah, Imperial Policy and South Africa, pp. 165–71,Google Scholar and , Hancock, op. cit. pp. 207–10Google Scholar.

17 Smuts certainly sent a copy to Bryce: see E.P., Bryce to Elgin, 5 Feb. 1906.

18 African (South), no. 837(a), 1 04 1906Google Scholar, CO. 879/92.

19 E.P., Selborne to Elgin, private telegram, 28 Dec. 1905.

20 E.P., typed memorandum, 26 Jan. 1906.

21 , Kennedy, op. cit. pp. 316–17Google Scholar.

22 , Hancock, op. cit. p. 213Google Scholar.

23 E.P., Grey to Elgin, 16 Dec. 1905.

24 E.P., Ripon to Elgin, 29 Dec. 1905; see also copy in Ripon Papers, B.M. Add. MSS. 3552/2.

25 African (South), no. 804, ‘A note upon the Transvaal Constitution as established by Letters Patent’, by Churchill, W. S., 2 01 1906, CO. 879/91Google Scholar.

26 E.P., Loreburn to Elgin, 21 Jan. 1906.

27 Campbell-Bannerman Papers, 41214/39-40, Elgin to Campbell-Bannerman, 23 Jan. 1906.

28 Parliamentary Debates, 3rd ser., vol. 305, 10 May 1886.

29 See, for example, CO. 291/87, Selborne to secretary of state, 27 Nov. 1905; CO. 291/111/ 1324, secretary of state to Selborne, telegram, 11 Jan. 1906.

30 See Campbell-Bannerman Papers 41243A/119; E.P., Elgin to Selborne, private, 16 Aug. 1906.

31 CO. 291/70/19079, minute by Graham, 7 June 1904.

32 This was announced by the prime minister on 21 Dec. 1905.

33 CO. 291/88/1604, memorandum by Selborne, 23 Dec. 1905.

34 E.P., Loreburn to Elgin, 21 Jan. 1906.

35 CO. 291/111/2847.

36 CAB. 37/82 (Lord Chancellor's Draft); African (South) 823, CO. 879/92.

37 E.P., Elgin to Lady Elgin, 8 Feb. 1906.

38 Ripon Papers 43552/28–29, Elgin to Ripon, 10 Feb. 1906; draft in E.P.

39 CAB. 41/30/29. (Photographic copies in P.R.O. of original Cabinet letters in the Royal Archives, made available by gracious permission of H.M. the Queen.)

40 CAB. 37/82/23, Cabinet memorandum, 12 Feb. 1906; also in E.P.

41 Smuts' memorandum, paras. 15 and 16.

42 E.P., Elgin to Lady Elgin, 16 Feb. 1906.

43 Ripon Papers 43552/30-31, Campbell-Bannerman to Elgin, 19 Feb. 1906; Elgin passed this letter to Ripon.

44 Cabinet memorandum, 12 Feb. 1906. It is possible Elgin may have exaggerated the support for the Lyttelton Constitution in South Africa; if so, Selborne may have been chiefly to blame for presenting him with a one-sided picture. In his memorandum, Elgin refers to being ‘challenged’ at the previous Cabine t meeting ‘for relying too exclusively on official reports’. He was not inclined ‘to withhold my trust in the accuracy of these reports as narrations of fact because, in some instances, they may seem tinged with some of the local colour’, but decided to circulate with his memorandum two letters (African (South) no. 826, CO. 879/92) from non-official sources, whic h seemed to hi m to corroborate the argument he endeavoured to present.

45 E.P., Elgin to Selborne, private, 17 Feb. 1906.

46 Ibid. private telegram, 18 Feb. 1906.

47 E.P., Elgin to Selborne, private, 22 Feb. 1906.

48 E.P., Loreburn to Elgin, 21 Jan. 1906.