Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The uneasy special relationship: dynamics and divergencies
- 2 Breakdown: into war, 1895–1899
- 3 Post-war: the myth of magnanimity, 1905–1907
- 4 African interests and the South Africa Act, 1908–1910
- 5 ‘Greater South Africa’: the struggle for the High Commission Territories, 1910–1961
- 6 The economic dimension: South Africa and the sterling area, 1931–1961
- 7 Britain, the United Nations, and the ‘South African disputes’, 1946–1961
- 8 The political consequences of Seretse Khama and Ruth, 1948–1952
- 9 Containing Afrikanerdom: the geopolitical origins of the Central African Federation, 1948–1953
- 10 Strategy and the transfer of Simon's Town, 1948–1957
- 11 The parting of the ways: the departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth, 1951–1961
- 12 Enfeebled lion? How South Africans viewed Britain, 1945–1961
- 13 Springbok reviled: some British reactions to apartheid, 1948–1994
- Epilogue The relationship restored: the return of the new South Africa to the Commonwealth, 1994
- Select bibliography
- Index
4 - African interests and the South Africa Act, 1908–1910
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The uneasy special relationship: dynamics and divergencies
- 2 Breakdown: into war, 1895–1899
- 3 Post-war: the myth of magnanimity, 1905–1907
- 4 African interests and the South Africa Act, 1908–1910
- 5 ‘Greater South Africa’: the struggle for the High Commission Territories, 1910–1961
- 6 The economic dimension: South Africa and the sterling area, 1931–1961
- 7 Britain, the United Nations, and the ‘South African disputes’, 1946–1961
- 8 The political consequences of Seretse Khama and Ruth, 1948–1952
- 9 Containing Afrikanerdom: the geopolitical origins of the Central African Federation, 1948–1953
- 10 Strategy and the transfer of Simon's Town, 1948–1957
- 11 The parting of the ways: the departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth, 1951–1961
- 12 Enfeebled lion? How South Africans viewed Britain, 1945–1961
- 13 Springbok reviled: some British reactions to apartheid, 1948–1994
- Epilogue The relationship restored: the return of the new South Africa to the Commonwealth, 1994
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
Whatever the ulterior motives on either side, the policies pursued by British and Afrikaner politicians between 1906 and 1909 did result in an improvement in the general atmosphere. British victory in 1901 had made one thing certain, that the constitutional shape of the future South Africa would have a British-monarchical complexion, tied to the empire, and not a Boer-republican one outside it. Within these parameters there now emerged a considerable convergence on unification as the next goal. Both sides began to feel more optimistic. With Het Volk in power in the Transvaal and Orangia Unie in the Free State, and with the South African Party having ousted Jameson's Progressives from office in the Cape, the Afrikaners began to feel that even if power was not immediately within their grasp, at least time and demography were in their favour. Botha and Smuts quickly won good opinions in London, and British policy-makers were ready to contemplate unification, confident that the British lion would prevail. They believed that a stronger, rationalised, and more grateful South Africa would be in British imperial and strategic interests. A further attraction was that the Union should produce a less parochial regime for Africans in Natal, where Zulu disturbances had been met with a disconcerting degree of panic and unimaginative brutality, thus earning it the Churchillian epithet of ‘the hooligan of the British empire’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Lion and the SpringbokBritain and South Africa since the Boer War, pp. 76 - 101Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003