HERTZOG, JAMES BARRY MUNNIK

James Barry Munnik Hertzog (April 3, 1866-November 21, 1942), a lawyer and Boer general, was prime minister of South Africa from 1924-39. A new phase in the history of South Africa began with Hertzog’s policy of formal separate political representation and the establishment of separate territorial areas for whites and blacks. In this sense he can be seen as one of the architects of the policy of apartheid.

PHOTO CAPTION: James Barry Munnik Hertzog. SOURCE: EA Library.

Upon graduating from Stellenbosch University, he attended the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands from 1889-92. He began his career in 1893 in Pretoria, before moving to Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State in 1895 as a judge.

Hertzog played a prominent part in the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) as a legal adviser, military general and negotiator at the final peace settlement. After the war he became a leader in the Afrikaner political revival. He devoted himself specifically to obtaining language equality for Dutch alongside English and also argued that full self-government, as in the Cape Colony, should be granted to the Orange Free State. Hertzog became one of the leading Free State politicians after self-government in 1907.

With the unification of South Africa in 1910, Hertzog was a recognised political leader who enjoyed a great deal of Afrikaner support. He opposed Louis Botha’s conciliation policy towards the English-speaking section of the population and this led to his expulsion from the Union cabinet. In 1914 he founded the National Party, which in time became a powerful organisation expressing the official Afrikaner view.

Hertzog opposed the Union’s participation in the First World War and sympathised with the Afrikaner rebels who used the Union’s involvement in the war as an opportunity to revolt against the status quo. In 1919, Hertzog was a leader of a nationalistic deputation to Versailles in a vain attempt to obtain greater constitutional freedom for the Union.

The National Party went from strength to strength and in the 1924 election, after an electoral pact with the Labour Party, Hertzog ousted J.C. Smuts as prime minister. As prime minister Hertzog piloted a number of important acts through Parliament and increased his political power by winning the 1929 election without the help of the Labour Party.

The severe economic depression of subsequent years brought Hertzog and Smuts together in one camp and in 1933 a coalition government was formed with Hertzog as prime minister. In 1934, Hertzog saw to it that the sovereign independence of the Union was confirmed beyond any doubt by Britain’s approval of the Status Act. Despite the constitutional progress, the unity of the National Party was shattered by Hertzog’s cooperation with Smuts and he was bitterly opposed by D.F. Malan, the Cape leader of the party. With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the breach was partially healed when Hertzog sided with Malan in opposing Smuts’ policy that South Africa should participate in the war. However, Hertzog never regained his former political stature and in 1940 he retired from politics and withdrew to his farm where he died in 1942.

Besides his contribution to Afrikaner culture and politics, Hertzog was actively involved in regulating black-white relationships in South Africa. When he became prime minister in 1924, he made the portfolio of “Native Affairs” his personal responsibility.

From the outset, Hertzog believed that there was “a profound, decisive difference between the whites and natives as far as numbers, civilisation, and development as a nation was concerned” and that a solution had to be found for the “conflicting interests and aspirations of natives and whites” in South Africa. This particular philosophy underpinned the policy of segregation which he pursued.

In order to implement his policy he promised to make more land available to Africans; to make the African reserves as attractive as possible; to train the Africans to govern themselves along western lines in their own areas; to establish a national African Council which was at first to have advisory powers and, later on, legislative powers concerning black affairs only; and to replace the political rights of the Cape Africans by arranging for seven white representatives for all Africans in South Africa. In a slightly modified form Hertzog’s ideas were embodied in the 1936 Natives Representation Act which he piloted through Parliament.

A.M. GRUNDLINGH