An African Adventure Part 3

GENERAL J. C. s.m.u.tS]

When one of his colleagues asked him where he got this information he said:

"I dug it out of my own mind. It will take the Nationalists a month to figure it out and by that time they will have forgotten all about it."

And it was forgotten.

s.m.u.ts not only has a keen sense of humor but is swift on the retort.

While speaking at a party rally in his district not many years after the Boer War he was continually interrupted by an ex-soldier. He stopped his speech and asked the man to state his grievance. The heckler said:

"General de la Rey guaranteed the men fighting under him a living."

Quick as a flash s.m.u.ts replied:

"Nonsense. What he guaranteed you was certain death."

Like many men conspicuous in public life s.m.u.ts gets up early and has polished off a good day's work before the average business man has settled down to his job. There is a big difference between his methods of work and those of Lloyd George. The British Prime Minister only goes to the House of Commons when he has to make a speech or when some important question is up for discussion. s.m.u.ts attends practically every session of Parliament, at least he did while I was in Capetown.

One reason was that on account of the extraordinary position in which he found himself, any moment might have produced a division carrying with it disastrous results for the Government. The crisis demanded that he remain literally on the job all the time. He left little to his lieutenants. Confident of his ability in debate he was always willing to risk a showdown but he had to be there when it came.

I watched him as he sat in the House. He occupied a front bench directly opposite Hertzog and where he could look his arch enemy squarely in the eyes all the time. I have seen him sit like a Sphinx for an hour without apparently moving a muscle. He has cultivated that rarest of arts which is to be a good listener. He is one of the great concentrators. In this genius, for it is little less, lies one of the secrets of his success.

During a lull in legislative proceedings he has a habit of taking a solitary walk out in the lobby. More than once I saw him pacing up and down, always with an ear c.o.c.ked toward the a.s.sembly Room so he could hear what was going on and rush to the rescue if necessary.

In the afternoon he would sometimes go into the members' smoking room and drink a cup of coffee, the popular drink in South Africa. In the old Boer household the coffee pot is constantly boiling. With a cup of coffee and a piece of "biltong" inside him a Boer could fight or trek all day. Coffee bears the same relation to the South African that tea does to the Englishman, save that it is consumed in much larger quant.i.ties. I might add that s.m.u.ts neither drinks liquor of any kind nor smokes, and he eats sparingly. He admits that his one dissipation is farming.

This comes naturally because he was born fifty years ago on a farm in what is known as the Western Province in the Karoo country. He did his share of the ch.o.r.es about the place until it was time for him to go to school. His father and his grandfather were farmers. Inbred in him, as in most Boers, is an ardent love of country life and especially an affection for the mountains. On more than one occasion he has climbed to the top of Table Mountain, which is no inconsiderable feat.

There are two ways of appraising s.m.u.ts. One is to see him in action as I did at Capetown, while Parliament was in session. The other is to get him with the background of his farm at Irene, a little way station about ten miles from Pretoria. Here, in a rambling one-story house surrounded by orchards, pastures, and gardens, he lives the simple life. In the western part of the Transvaal he owns a real farm. He showed his shrewdness in the acquisition of this property because he bought it at a time when the region was dubbed a "desert." Now it is a garden spot.

Irene has various distinct advantages. For one thing it is his permanent home. _Groote Schuur_ is the property of the Government and he owes his tenancy of it entirely to the fortunes of politics. At Irene is planted his hearthstone and around it is mobilized his considerable family.

There are six little s.m.u.tses. s.m.u.ts married the sweetheart of his youth who is a rarely congenial helpmate. It was once said of her that she "went about the house with a baby under one arm and a Greek dictionary under the other."

Most people do not realize that the Union of South Africa has two capitals. Capetown with the House of Parliament is the center of legislation, while Pretoria, the ancient Kruger stronghold, with its magnificent new Union buildings atop a commanding eminence, is the fountain-head of administration. With Irene only ten miles away it is easy for s.m.u.ts to live with his family after the adjournment of Parliament, and go in to his office at Pretoria every day.

I have already given you a hint of the s.m.u.ts personal appearance. Let us now take a good look at him. His forehead is lofty, his nose arched, his mouth large. You know that his blonde beard veils a strong jaw. The eyes are reminiscent of those marvelous...o...b.. of Marshal Foch only they are blue, haunting and at times inexorable. Yet they can light up with humor and glow with friendliness.

s.m.u.ts is essentially an out-of-doors person and his body is wiry and rangy. He has the stride of a man seasoned to the long march and who is equally at home in the saddle. He speaks with vigour and at times not without emotion. The Boer is not a particularly demonstrative person and s.m.u.ts has some of the racial reserve. His personality betokens potential strength,--a suggestion of the unplumbed reserve that keeps people guessing. This applies to his mental as well as his physical capacity.

Frankly cordial, he resents familiarity. You would never think of slapping him on the shoulder and saying, "h.e.l.lo, Jan." More than one blithe and buoyant person has been frozen into respectful silence in such a foolhardy undertaking.

His middle name is Christian and it does not belie a strong phase of his character. Without carrying his religious convictions on his coat-sleeve, he has nevertheless a fine spiritual strain in his make-up.

He is an all-round dependable person, with an adaptability to environment that is little short of amazing.

IV

Now let us turn to another and less conspicuous South African whose point of view, imperial, personal and patriotic, is the exact opposite of that of s.m.u.ts. Throughout this chapter has run the strain of Hertzog, first the Boer General fighting gallantly in the field with s.m.u.ts as youthful comrade; then the member of the Botha Cabinet; later the bitter insurgent, and now the implacable foe of the order that he helped to establish. What manner of man is he and what has he to say?

I talked to him one afternoon when he left the floor leadership to his chief lieutenant, a son of the late President Steyn of the Orange Free State. Like his father, who called himself "President" to the end of his life although his little republic had slipped away from him, he has never really yielded to English rule.

We adjourned to the smoking room where we had the inevitable cup of South African coffee. I was prepared to find a fanatic and fire-eater.

Instead I faced a thin, undersized man who looked anything but a general and statesman. Put him against the background of a small New England town and you would take him for an American country lawyer. He resembles the student more than the soldier and, like many Boers, speaks English with a British accent. Nor is he without force. No man can play the role that he has played in South Africa those past twenty-five years without having substance in him.

When I asked him to state his case he said:

"The republican idea is as old as South Africa. There was a republic before the British arrived. The idea came from the American Revolution and the inspiration was Washington. The Great Trek of 1836 was a protest very much like the one we are making today.

"President Wilson articulated the Boer feeling with his gospel of self-determination. He also voiced the aspirations of Ireland, India and Egypt. It is a great world idea--a deep moral conviction of mankind, this right of the individual state, as of the individual for freedom.

"Never again will Transvaal and Orange Free State history be repeated.

No matter how a nation covets another--and I refer to British covetousness,--if the nation coveted is able to govern itself it cannot and must not be a.s.similated. It is one result of the Great War."

"What is the Nationalist ideal?" I asked.

"It is the right to self-rule," replied Hertzog. "But there must be no conflict if it can be avoided. It must prevail by reason and education.

At the present time I admit that the majority of South Africans do not want republicanism. The Nationalist mission today is to keep the torch lighted."

"How does this idea fit into the spirit of the League of Nations?" I queried.

"It fits in perfectly," was the response. "We Nationalists favor the League as outlined by Wilson. But I fear that it will develop into a capitalistic, imperialistic empire dominating the world instead of a league of nations."

I asked Hertzog how he reconciled acquiescence to Union to the present Nationalist revolt. The answer was:

"The Nationalists supported the Government because of their attachment to General Botha. Deep down in his heart Botha wanted to be free and independent."

"How about Ireland?" I demanded.

The General smiled as he responded: "Our position is different. It does not require dynamite, but education. With us it is a simple matter of the will of the people. I do not think that conditions in South Africa will ever reach the state at which they have arrived in Ireland."

Commenting on the Union and its relations to the British Empire Hertzog continued:

"The Union is not a failure but we could be better governed. The thing to which we take exception is that the British Government, through our connection with it, is in a position by which it gets an undue advantage directly and indirectly to influence legislation. For example, we were not asked to conquer German South-West Africa; it was a command.

"Very much against the feeling of the old population, that is the Dutch element, we were led into partic.i.p.ation in the war. Today this old population feels as strongly as ever against South Africa being involved in European politics. It feels that all this Empire movement only leads in that direction and involves us in world conflicts.

"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 a.n.a.lysis 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 a.s.similation is accomplished. A second Boer War is unthinkable."

We can now return to s.m.u.ts 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.