which linked the Transvaal and Orange River Colony; the Central South African Railway
amalgamation; and the customs union. As we have seen, the Kindergarten controlled the
first two of these completely; in addition, they controlled the administration of Transvaal
completely. This was important, because the gold and diamond mines made this colony
the decisive economic power in South Africa, and control of this power gave the
Kindergarten the leverage with which to compel the other states to join a union.
In 1906, Curtis, Dawson, Hichens, Brand, and Kerr, with the support of Feetham and
Malcolm, went to Lord Selborne and asked his permission to work for the Union. They
prevailed upon Dr. Starr Jameson, at that time Premier of Cape Colony, to write to
Selborne in support of the project. When permission was obtained, Curtis resigned from
his post in Johannesburg and, with Kerr's assistance, formed "Closer Union Societies" as
propaganda bodies throughout South Africa. Dawson, as editor, controlled the
Johannesburg Star. The Times of London was controlled completely, as far as news from
South Africa was concerned, with Monypenny, Amery, Basil Williams, and Grigg in
strategic spots—the last as head of the imperial department of the paper. Fabian Ware
published articles by various members of the Milner Group in his Morning Post. In South
Africa, £5000 was obtained from Abe Bailey to found a monthly paper to further the
cause of union. This paper, The State, was edited by Philip Kerr and B. K. Long and
became the predecessor of The Round Table, also edited by Kerr and financed by Bailey.
Bailey was not only the chief financial support of the Kindergarten's activities for closer
union in South Africa, but also the first financial contributor to The Round Table in 1910,
and to the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1919. He contributed to both during
his life, and at his death in 1940 gave The Round Table £1000 a year for an indefinite
period. He had given the Royal Institute £5000 a year in perpetuity in 1928. Like his
close associates Rhodes and Beit, he left part of his immense fortune in the form of a trust
fund to further imperial interests. In Bailey's case, the fund amounted to £250,000.
As part pf the project toward a Union of South Africa, Curtis in 1906 drew up a
memorandum on the need for closer union of the South African territories, basing his
arguments chiefly on the need for greater railway and customs unity. This, with the
addition of a section written by Kerr on railway rates, and a few paragraphs by Selborne,
was issued with the famous Selborne Federation Dispatch of 7 January 1907 and
published as an Imperial Blue Book (Cmd. 3564 of 1907). It was republished, with an
introduction by Basil Williams of the Kindergarten, by Oxford University Press in 1925.
The Central Committee of the Closer Union Societies (which was nothing but the
Kindergarten) wrote a complete and detailed account of the political institutions of the
various areas concerned. This was called The Government of South Africa and was issued
anonymously in five parts, and revised later in two quarto volumes. A copy was sent to
every delegate to the National Convention in Durban in 1908, along with another
anonymous work (edited by B. K. Long), called The Framework of Union. This latter
work contained copies of the five chief federal constitutions of the world (United States,
Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia). Curtis was also the chief author of the
draft of projected constitution presented by the Transvaal delegation to the National
Convention. This draft, with modifications, became the Constitution of the Union of
South Africa in 1910. The Transvaal delegation, alone of the various delegations, lived
together in one house and had a body of expert advisers; both of these circumstances
were due to the Kindergarten.
After the convention accepted the Union Constitution, it was necessary to have it
accepted by the Imperial Parliament and the various states of South Africa. In both of
these tasks the Kindergarten played an important role, in England through their control of
The Times and The Morning Post as well as other sources of propaganda, and in South
Africa by the economic pressure of the Transvaal. In Natal, the only state which
submitted the question to a referendum, the Kindergarten put on an intensive propaganda
drive, financed with money from the Transvaal. Of this struggle in Natal, Brand, with his
usual secrecy on all matters dealing with the Kindergarten, merely says: "A referendum
was therefore taken—contrary to general expectation, it revealed an overwhelming
majority for union, a good testimony to the sound sense of the people of the colony."(9)
Brand, as secretary to the Transvaal delegation to the Convention, knew more than this!
The same secrecy was maintained in regard to the whole convention. No record of its
proceedings was kept, but, according to Worsfold, its resolutions were drafted by Brand
and Duncan.
Throughout these activities, the Kindergarten received powerful support from a man
who by this time was a member of the Milner Group and later gained international fame,
chiefly because of this membership. This was Jan C. Smuts.
Smuts had studied in England, at Cambridge University and the Middle Temple. By
1895 he was a lawyer in Cape Town. His lack of success in this profession doubtless had
some influence in turning him into the devious opportunist he soon became, but
throughout his opportunism he clung to that ideal which he shared with Rhodes and
Milner—the ideal of a united South Africa. All his actions from this date onward—no
matter how much they may seem, viewed superficially, to lead in another direction—
were directed toward the end ultimately achieved: a United South Africa within the
British Empire—and, to him almost equally important, a United South Africa in which he
would be the dominant figure. Smuts and Milner differed chiefly on this last point, for if
Milner was "selfless," this was almost the last word which could be applied to Smuts.
Otherwise the two seemed very similar—similar in their desires for a united South Africa
and later a united British Empire, and extraordinarily similar in their cold austerity,
impersonal intellectualism, and driving discipline (applied to self even more than to
others). In spite of their similar goals for the Empire, Smuts and Milner were not close
friends. Perhaps such similar personalities could not be expected to find mutual
agreement, but the divergence probably rests, rather, on the one characteristic in their
personalities where they most obviously differed.
Smuts and Rhodes, on the other hand, got on together very well. As early as 1895, the
unsuccessful Cape Town lawyer was sent by the great imperialist to Kimberley to speak
in his defense. But after the Jameson Raid, Smuts became one of the most vociferous
critics of Rhodes and the British. These attacks gave Smuts a reputation as an
Anglophobe, which yielded considerable profits immediately. Going to the Transvaal
(where he added to his fame by uncompromising support of President Kruger), he was
raised, at the age of twenty-eight, to the post of State Attorney (1898). In this position,
and later as Colonial Secretary, he adopted tactics which led steadily to war (forcing the
Uitlanders to pay taxes while denying them the franchise, arresting Uitlander newspaper