Jan Christian Smuts (1870–1950) in Context: An Answer to Mazower and Morefield

Abstract

This article engages with the recent scholarship of Mark Mazower and Jeanne Morefield regarding the South African and Commonwealth statesman Jan Christian Smuts (1870–1950), and in particular with their contention that Smuts was preoccupied with issues of racial superiority, and that this was his main motivator in matters of politics, both internationally and domestically. However, during his lifetime Smuts did not see the ‘Native question’ in the form in which it manifested from the 1950s onwards. It is therefore unfair and inaccurate to over-emphasise the racial question when writing about Smuts. Any historical account of Smuts must keep at least one eye on what Smuts could not have foreseen and must place Smuts in the context of his own time. Progression from smaller to greater wholes – one white nation instead of two language sections; a united South Africa instead of divided colonies and republics; membership of self-governing Dominions in a single British Commonwealth, and membership of international organisations, in particular the League of Nations, and later the United Nations – these were the ends to which Smuts’ energies were unreservedly devoted throughout his career. This is the correct lens through which to view Smuts’ liberal credentials.

Keywords:

• Jan Christian Smuts
• South Africa
• segregation
• apartheid
• Preamble to the UN Charter
• human rights
• Mark Mazower
• Jeanne Morefield

Notes

1. As quoted in Taha (2011, p. 1,529).

2. Mazower (2009, p. 19).

3. Mazower (2009, pp. 19–21). Mazower describes Smuts as ‘the architect of white settler nationalism who did more than anyone to argue for, and help draft, the UN’s stirring preamble’ (p. 19).

4. Morefield (2014, p. 4).

5. Ibid, p. 3.

6. Mazower (2009, p. 30).

7. Ibid., p. 57.

8. Noel Garson points out that, in general discourse, the term race was used ‘very loosely for much of Smuts’ lifetime’ to identify the Afrikaner and English sections of the white population as the ‘two white races’. This usage was quite common until at least 1948. There was frequent talk of ‘racial conflict’ between the two sections and Smuts often condemned as ‘racialistic’ the efforts of his political opponents to mobilise the ethnic and linguistic affinities of Afrikaners in the interests of an exclusively Afrikaner nationalism (Garson, 2007, p. 157).

9. Morefield (2014, p. 174). Morefield’s description of Smuts, driven to its logical conclusion, would mean either that (i) in their wholehearted acceptance of Smuts, English liberal society was, by and large, also ‘racist’, or (ii) that Smuts was successful in concealing his ‘racism’ and pulling the wool over the eyes of the whole of liberal England. Neither conclusion seems plausible.

10. Mazower (2009, pp. 53–54).

11. Morefield (2014, p. 172).

12. Mazower (2009, p. 19).

13. For example, Normand and Zaidi point out that racism, as it is commonly understood today, was the rule, not the exception, throughout the United States and Europe. The great powers openly practised what we would term ‘racism’, especially in the colonies. In addition to the discriminatory legislation that offended Japanese and Asian citizens, the United States was, in significant part, a racially segregated society, and the rudiment of British and French imperialism was the distinction between the ‘superior’ Europeans and the ‘inferior’ native peoples (Normand and Zaidi, 2008, p. 52).

14. Garson (2007, p. 160).

15. As quoted in Millin (1955, p. 124).

16. As quoted in Beukes (1989, p. 185).

17. Friedman (1976, p. 186). Smuts, who could be high-handed and imperious in the administrative sphere, was strangely cautious and even timid in taking political initiative. He ruled his cabinet with a rod of iron; no one, save Hofmeyr, dared to question his decisions. Disagreement would have been a sign of insurrection. Yet, in parliament his style was placatory. He rarely struck an angry or aggressive note. He preferred the minor key, even when debating great issues. He would rather propitiate the opposition by conceding an element of validity in their case, than triumph over them by a display of superior debating skill (of which he was eminently capable) (ibid., p. 187).

18. Hyam (2010, p. 405).

19. Garson (2007, p. 155).

20. Schwarz (2013, p. 308).

21. Taylor, English History 1914–1945, p. 137, as quoted in Tothill (2007, p. 186).

22. Morefield (2014, p. 175).

23. Garson (2007, p. 162).

24. The 1929 general election came to be known as the ‘Black Peril’ election, as the National Party exploited the racial question. The Nationalists claimed that Smuts and his South African Party stood for a policy of ‘niksdoen’ (doing nothing), as far as the ‘Black threat’ was concerned, and that he also stood for ‘gelykstelling’ (equality of Blacks and Whites). Smuts had played right into his opponents’ hands, when, in a speech on 17 January 1929, he stated: ‘Let us cultivate feelings of friendship over this African continent, so that one day we may have a British confederation of African states ... a great African dominion stretching unbroken throughout Africa ... That is the cardinal point in my policy’. As quoted in Cameron (1994, p. 113).

25. Jeeves (2004, p. 7).

26. Davenport (2005, p. 204).

27. Lentin (2010, p. 143).

28. The seeds of that resentment were already germinating in Smuts’ time, but it was only in his closing years that he began to realise the full implication of this growth (Ingham, 1986, p. xii).

29. Garson (2007, p. 175).

30. Davenport (2005, p. 202). To be sure, Smuts was not prepared to do anything but to stay the government’s course of ‘practical social policy away from politics’ (Smuts to J. H. Hofmeyr, 28 September 1946, in Van der Poel, 2007c, p. 93).

31. Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 13 January 1943, in Van der Poel (2007b, p. 408). Smuts was acutely cognisant of not straying too far from his political base: ‘The danger is that by appearing pro-Native I may run the risk to lose the general election next year, and thus hand the Natives over to the other extreme’ (Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 1 February 1947, in Van der Poel, 2007c, p. 121). Smuts had to contend with the views of ‘the people by whose vote’ he governed South Africa, ‘many amongst them hopelessly bigoted and deaf to reason’ on the colour question. As quoted in Hancock (1968, p. 487).

32. Hancock (1962, pp. 32, 121).

33. Smuts (1944, p. 73).

34. Smuts to J. X. Merriman, 13 March 1906, in Hancock and Van der Poel (2007, p. 169).

35. Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 15 May 1937, in Van der Poel (2007b, p. 78).

36. Ingham (1986, p. 235).

37. Garson (2007, p. 160). Likewise, Saul Dubow states that, for Smuts, always the spread of Western civilisation was the driving logic or spirit (Dubow, 2008, p. 55).

38. Smuts (1944, pp. 260–261).

39. Smuts to J. G. Latham, 12 February 1947, in Van der Poel, 2007c, p. 124). ‘What is the future of Australia going to be in that Asiatic world? Similarly what is the position of South Africa going to be if she can no longer look to European leadership as her bulwark?’ (Ibid.).

40. Smuts to G. G. A. Murray, 17 December 1947, in Van der Poel (2007c, p. 169).

41. Tsokhas (2010, p. 81).

42. As quoted in Beukes (1989, p. 178).

43. Cameron (1994, p. 90).

44. Cameron (1990, pp. 110–111).

45. As quoted in Cameron (1994, p. 111).

46. Friedman (1976, p. 157).

47. Unpublished notes of an address by Smuts in the chapel of Christ’s College, Cambridge, on Sunday 21 October 1934. A copy is on file with the author.

48. Garson (2007, p. 172). The South African diamond magnate, Harry Oppenheimer, in the foreword to Beukes’ The Holistic Smuts, wrote: ‘[I]s it possible to be a party politician, a practitioner of the art of the possible, and at the same time a mystic? ... I have come to wonder if this was not Smuts’ personal tragedy ... It was his misfortune that the environment in which he was born and his own temperament made it necessary for him to work on two time scales. As a holist he thought in terms of eternity; as a politician and patriot, trying to serve South Africa to the best of his ability in turbulent times, he had to think in terms of the next election’ (Beukes, 1989, p. 10).

49. Smuts, ‘Speech 1933)’, in Van der Poel (2007a, p. 544).

50. Smuts, ‘Address (21 January 1942)’, in Van der Poel (2007b, p. 338).

51. Smuts, ‘Speech (1943)’, in Van der Poel (2007b, p. 457).

52. Ibid., p. 457.

53. Hancock (1968, p. 486).

54. Ibid., p. 486.

55. Hancock (1964, p. 14).

56. Garson (2007, p. 172).

57. See text accompanying note 34 above.

58. In response to a question, Hofmeyr stated: ‘Natives will eventually be represented by Natives, and Indians by Indians’ (Hancock, 1968, p. 497). The result of the by-election was not a positive augury for Hofmeyr’s prophesy. The United Party’s ‘first-class’ candidate, Sir de Villiers Graaf, suffered a ‘bad defeat’ at the hands of the National Party, leaving the ‘enemy ... now cock-a-hoop’ (Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 14 January 1947, in Van der Poel, 2007c, p. 118).

59. As quoted in Friedman (1976, p. 206).

60. Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 28 June 1948, in Van der Poel (2007c, p. 212).

61. Smuts, ‘Speech (1948)’, in Van der Poel (2007c, p. 271).

62. Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 6 December 1948, in Van der Poel (2007c, p. 272).

63. Ibid., p. 272.

64. Paton (1952, p. 4).

65. Friedman (1976, p. 161).

66. Dubow (1989, p. 15).

67. Ibid., p. 44.

68. Smuts (1917, pp. 86–88). On another occasion, Smut stated: ‘It will be a black day for South Africa if the Black man is treated with ill-feeling and prejudice. While it is imperative to build up among the European section a spirit of co-operation and unity, it is also imperative to create a spirit of trust and goodwill so far as the Natives are concerned’ (as quoted in Blanckenberg, 1951, p. 88). And on yet another: ‘As long as the Natives are poor and oppressed, South Africa will be poor and oppressed. We can only be happy by raising the level of everybody irrespective of race and colour’ (as quoted in Blanckenberg, 1951, p. 88).

69. Morefield (2014, p. 190).

70. Dubow (1989, p. 299).

71. Hyam (2010, p. 408). This difference is exemplified in the extension of specific legislation against inter-racial prostitution in the 1927 Immorality Act, to an ideologically driven criminalisation of racial mixture in the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, the ‘highly symbolic first act of the apartheid regime’ (ibid.).

72. As quoted in Hyam (2010).

73. Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 24 January 1948, in Van der Poel (2007c, p. 175). Smuts wrote: ‘I see no other course but to carry on and await developments and trust to the chapter of the unknown. The Native question especially weighs very heavily on me, although even there I think disappointment and frustration may be in store for me. But rather defeat than running away, when there is still fight in me’ (ibid.).

74. Ibid., pp. 174–176.

75. Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 29 September 1948, in Van der Poel (2007c, p. 251).

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid.

78. Smuts to D. Moore, 17 October 1948, in Van der Poel (2007c, p. 254).

79. Ibid.

80. Smuts to M. C. Gillett, 20 July 1948, in Van der Poel (2007c, p. 218).

81. Friedman (1976, p. 178).

82. Davenport (2005, p. 196); Tsokhas (2010, p. 84).

83. Address, 21 January 1942, in Van der Poel (2007c, pp. 335, 336).

84. Hyslop (2012, p. 453).

85. Ibid., p. 439.

86. The Nationalists’ proposed policy of apartheid would involve the gradual deportation and restriction of urban black South Africans to exclusively black territories or Bantustans that in theory would become autonomous regions (Tsokhas, 2010, p. 85).

87. Dubow, ‘Introduction’, in Dubow and Jeeves (2005, pp. 1–2).

88. Schwarz (2013, p. 319).

89. Interview with Edward Marshall in Smuts (1917, p. 99).