Union of South Africa

Union of South Africa
Unie van Suid-Afrika
Unie van Zuid-Afrika

Commonwealth Realm

←

1910–1961

→


Flag	Coat of arms

Motto
Ex Unitate Vires
(Latin: From Unity, Strength)

Anthem
Die Stem van Suid-Afrika
"The Call of South Africa"

Location of the Union of South Africa. South West Africa shown as disputed area (administered as 5th province of the Union).

Capital

Cape Town (legislative)
Pretoria (administrative)
Bloemfontein (judicial)
Pietermaritzburg(archival)

Language(s)

Dutch, English, Afrikaans (after 1925)

Government

Constitutional monarchy

Monarch

- 1910-1936

- 1936-1937

- 1937-1952

- 1952-1961

Governor-General

- 1910-1914

Herbert Gladstone, 1st Viscount Gladstone

- 1959-1961

Charles Robberts Swart

Prime Minister

Louis Botha
Jan Smuts
J. B. M. Hertzog
Jan Smuts
Daniel Malan
Johannes Strijom
Hendrik Verwoerd

Legislature

Parliament

- Upper house

Senate

- Lower house

House of Assembly

History

- Union

May 31, 1910

- Statute of Westminster

December 11, 1931

- Republic

May 31, 1961

Area

- 1961

2,045,320 km² (789,702 sq mi)

Population

- 1961 est.

18,216,000

Density

8.9 /km² (23.1 /sq mi)

Currency

South African pound

Union of South Africa Red Ensign (1912–1928)

The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unity of the previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Following the First World War, the Union of South Africa was granted the administration of the German South-West Africa colony as a League of Nations mandate and it became treated in most respects as if it were another province of the Union.

It was founded as a dominion, later Commonwealth realm, but became a republic on 31 May 1961, henceforth known as the Republic of South Africa.

1 Constitution
2 Reasons for unification
- 2.1 South African customs union and trade tariffs
3 The Union of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia
4 The Union of South Africa and South-West Africa
5 The Statute of Westminster
6 Bibliography
7 See also
8 External links

Constitution

Main features

Unlike Canada and Australia, the Union was a unitary state, rather than a federation, with each colony's parliaments being abolished and replaced with provincial councils. A bicameral parliament was created, consisting of a House of Assembly and Senate, and its members were elected mostly by the country's white minority. During the course of the Union the franchise changed on several occasions often to suit the needs of the government of the day. Parliamentary Supremacy was entrenched and save for procedural safeguards the courts were unable to intervene in Parliament's decisions or policies.

Capitals

Owing to disagreements over where the Union's capital should be, a compromise was reached in which every province would be dealt a share of the benefits of the capital: the administration would be seated in Pretoria (Transvaal), the Seat of Parliament would be in Cape Town (Cape Province), the Appellate Division would be in Bloemfontein (Orange Free State), and Pietermaritzburg (Natal) was given financial compensation. This arrangement effectively continues today, as most organs of state are located in Pretoria, with the notable exceptions of the Constitutional Court and Human Rights Commission (both in Johannesburg), the Supreme Court of Appeal and Judicial Services Commission (both in Bloemfontein) and Parliament (Cape Town). The only reference to a capital city in the current South African Constitution is that Cape Town is the Seat of Parliament.

Relationship to the Crown

The Union initially remained under the British Crown as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. With the passage of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, the Union was considered equal in status to the other Commonwealth Realms, and the United Kingdom could no longer legislate on behalf of South Africa. Thus, a legally separate South African Crown came into being, and the King reigned in the country as King of South Africa rather than King of the United Kingdom. The Monarch was represented in South Africa by a Governor-General, while effective power was exercised by the Prime Minister (who was Head of Government). Louis Botha, formerly a Boer general, was appointed first Prime Minister of the Union, heading a coalition representing the white Afrikaner and English-speaking communities. Prosecutions before courts were instituted in the name of the Crown (cited in the format Rex v Accused) and government officials served in the name of the Crown.

During the course of the Union the Royal Styles of the Monarch were modified, with Elizabeth II being the last reigning Queen of South Africa.

Historical states
in present-day
South Africa

before 1600

Mapungubwe (1050–1270)

1600-1700

Cape Colony (1652–1910)

1700-1800

Swellendam (1795)

Graaff Reinet (1795–1796)

1800-1850

Waterboer's Land (1813–1871)

Zulu Kingdom (1818–1897)

Adam Kok's Land (1825–1861)

Winburg (1836–1844)

Potchefstroom (1837–1848)

Natalia Republic (1839–1843)

1850-1875

Orange Free State (1854–1902)

Republic of Utrecht (1854–1858)

Lydenburg Republic (1856–1860)

South African Republic (1857–1902)

Griqualand East (1861–1879)

Griqualand West (1870)

1875-1900

Stellaland (1882–1885)

Goshen (1882–1883)

Nieuw Republiek (1884–1888)

Klein Vrystaat (1886–1891)

1900-present

Cape Colony (1652–1910)

Union of South Africa (1910–1961)

Transkei (1976–1994)

Bophuthatswana (1977–1994)

Venda (1979–1994)

Ciskei (1981–1994)

Republic of South Africa (1961–present)

Languages

As an entrenched clause in the Constitution originally, Dutch was an official language alongside English, but it was de facto replaced by Afrikaans in 1926 whilst officially Dutch and Afrikaans co-existed legally until the 1960s.

Final days of the South Africa Act and legacy

Following a referendum on 5 October 1960, in which whites voted in favour of a republic, the Union became the Republic of South Africa on 31 May 1961 and left the Commonwealth in the face of condemnation of its apartheid policies. Subsequently the South African Parliament passed a Constitution that repealed the South Africa Act. The features of the Union were carried over with very little change to the newly formed Republic. The decision to transform from a Union to Republic was narrowly decided in the referendum. The decision together with South Africa's insistence on adhering to its policy of apartheid resulted in South Africa's de facto expulsion from the Commonwealth of Nations (South Africa left the association when it was resolved that she would not be permitted to remain on the terms she wished).

On the question of race relations, some have opined that the Union was so pre-occupied with uniting the white races (the British and the Boers) into a single race that it enabled the gulf between whites and blacks to enlarge.

Segregation

The South Africa Act dealt with race in two specific provisions. First it entrenched the vote of the Cape Colony which operated free of racial considerations (although due to socio-economic restrictions no real political expression of non-whites was possible). Second it made "native affairs" a matter for the national government. The practice therefore was to establish a Minister of Native Affairs.

Reasons for unification

At the close of the Anglo-Boer War in 1902, the four colonies were for the first time under a common flag, and the most significant obstacle which had prevented previous plans at unification had been removed. Hence the long-standing desire of many colonial administrators to establish a unified structure became feasible.

Previous attempts to unite the colonies had been made by Sir George Grey the Governor of Cape Colony from 1854 to 1861; he had been overruled by the Colonial Office, though the Orange Free State had agreed and the Transvaal may also have agreed. Subsequently Lord Carnarvon who was Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1874 to 1878 had promoted self-government and federation.

South African customs union and trade tariffs

The matter of trade tariffs had been a long-standing source of conflict between the various political units of Southern Africa. Essentially at the heart of the crisis lay the fact that the Transvaal was a landlocked economic hub that resented its dependence on its neighbours, as well as the costs it was incurring through rail and harbour customs.

The Cape Colony was heavily dependent upon customs as a source of tax revenue and subsequently was directly competing with both Natal and Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique). At the time of unification the bulk of cargo destined for the Witwatersrand area entered through Lourenço Marques (now Maputo in Mozambique) owing largely to the relative distance and the ZARs policy of reducing its dependence on the British Empire. The South African Customs Union came into existence in 1906, but various problems existed with the arrangements particularly because the Transvaal was insistent on dominating the Union.

After Unification the South African Customs Union continued to exist including the other British territories (the Protectorates and Rhodesia)

The Union of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia

In 1922 the colony of Southern Rhodesia had a chance (ultimately rejected) to join the Union through a referendum. The referendum resulted from the fact that by 1920 British South Africa Company rule in Southern Rhodesia was no longer practical with many favouring some form of 'responsible government'. Some favoured responsible government within Southern Rhodesia while others (especially in Matabeleland) favoured membership in the Union of South Africa.

Prior to the referendum representatives of Southern Rhodesia visited Cape Town where the Prime Minister of South Africa, Jan Smuts, eventually offered terms he considered reasonable and which the United Kingdom government found acceptable. Although opinion among the United Kingdom government, the South African government and the British South Africa Company favoured the union option (and none tried to interfere in the referendum), when the referendum was held the results saw 59.4% in favour of responsible government for a separate colony and 40.6% in favour of joining the Union of South Africa.

The Union of South Africa and South-West Africa

Following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 the Union of South Africa occupied and annexed the German colony of German South-West Africa. With the establishment of the League of Nations and cessation of the war, South Africa obtained a Class C Mandate to administer South-West Africa "under the laws of the mandatory (South Africa) as integral portions of its territory". Subsequently the Union of South Africa generally regarded South-West Africa as a fifth province, although this was never an official status.

With the creation of the United Nations, the Union applied for the incorporation of South-West Africa, but its application was rejected by the U.N., which invited South Africa to prepare a Trusteeship agreement instead. This invitation was in turn rejected by the Union, which subsequently did not modify the administration of South-West Africa and continued to adhere to the original mandate. This caused a complex set of legal wranglings that were not finalised when the Union was replaced with the Republic of South Africa. In 1949, the Union passed a law bringing South-West Africa into closer association with it including giving South-West Africa representation in the South African parliament. Ultimately the Republic reneged on its obligations to South-West Africa.

Walvis Bay, which is now in Namibia, was originally a part of the Union of South Africa as it was a part of the Cape Colony at the time of Unification (it fell under the magisterial district of Cape Town). In 1921 Walvis Bay was integrated with the Class C Mandate over South-West Africa for the rest of the Union's duration and for part of the Republic era.

The Statute of Westminster

The Statute of Westminster 1931 passed by the Imperial Parliament in December 1931, which repealed the Colonial Laws Validity Act and implemented the Balfour Declaration 1926, had a profound impact on the constitutional structure and status of the Union. The most notable effect was that the South African Parliament was released from many restrictions concerning the handling of the so called "native question". However the repeal was not sufficient to enable the South African Parliament to ignore the entrenched clauses of its constitution (the South Africa Act) which led to the constitutional crisis of the 1950s.

Bibliography

CJ Muller (ed) 500 Years History of South Africa, H&R Academica 1969
L Thompson A History of South Africa, Johnathan Ball Publishers 2006. ISBN 1-86842-236-4
L Thompson, The Unification of South Africa 1902 - 1910, Oxford University Press 1960.

External links

Wikisource has several original texts related to: Union of South Africa

British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations

Legend
Current territory · Former territory
* now a Commonwealth Realm · now a member of the Commonwealth of Nations

Europe

18th century
1708–1757 Minorca
since 1713 Gibraltar
1763–1782 Minorca
1798–1802 Minorca

19th century
1800–1964 Malta
1807–1890 Heligoland
1809–1864 Ionian Islands

20th century
1921-1937 Irish Free State

North America

17th century 1607–1776 Virginia 1610–1907 Newfoundland since 1619 Bermuda 1620–1691 Plymouth Colony 1629–1691 Massachusetts Bay Colony 1632–1776 Maryland 1636–1776 Connecticut 1636–1776 Rhode Island 1637–1662 New Haven Colony 1663–1712 Carolina 1664–1776 New York 1665–1674 and 1702-1776 New Jersey 1670–1870 Rupert's Land 1674–1702 East Jersey 1674–1702 West Jersey 1680–1776 New Hampshire 1681–1776 Pennsylvania 1686–1689 Dominion of New England 1691–1776 Massachusetts	18th century 1701–1776 Delaware 1712–1776 North Carolina 1712–1776 South Carolina 1713–1867 Nova Scotia 1733–1776 Georgia 1763–1873 Prince Edward Island 1763–1791 Quebec 1763–1783 East Florida 1763–1783 West Florida 1784–1867 New Brunswick 1791–1841 Lower Canada 1791–1841 Upper Canada	19th century 1818–1846 Columbia District / Oregon Country¹ 1841–1867 Province of Canada 1849–1866 Vancouver Island 1853–1863 Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands 1858–1866 British Columbia 1859–1870 North-Western Territory 1862–1863 Stikine Territory 1866–1871 Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1867–1931 *Dominion of Canada² 20th century 1907–1949 Dominion of Newfoundland³
¹Occupied jointly with the United States ²In 1931, Canada and other British dominions obtained self-government through the Statute of Westminster. see Canada's name. ³Gave up self-rule in 1934, but remained a de jure Dominion until it joined Canada in 1949.

Latin America and the Caribbean

17th century 1605–1979 *Saint Lucia 1623–1883 Saint Kitts (Saint Kitts & Nevis)* 1624–1966 *Barbados 1625–1650 Saint Croix 1627–1979 *St. Vincent and the Grenadines 1628–1883 Nevis (Saint Kitts & Nevis)* 1629–1641 St. Andrew and Providence Islands⁴ since 1632 Montserrat 1632–1860 Antigua (Antigua & Barbuda)* 1643–1860 Bay Islands since 1650 Anguilla 1651–1667 Willoughbyland (Suriname) 1655–1850 Mosquito Coast (protectorate) 1655–1962 *Jamaica since 1666 British Virgin Islands since 1670 Cayman Islands 1670–1973 *Bahamas 1670–1688 St. Andrew and Providence Islands⁴ 1671–1816 Leeward Islands	18th century 1762–1974 *Grenada 1763–1978 Dominica since 1799 Turks and Caicos Islands	19th century 1831–1966 British Guiana (Guyana) 1833–1960 Windward Islands 1833–1960 Leeward Islands 1860–1981 *Antigua and Barbuda 1871–1964 British Honduras (Belize)* 1882–1983 *St. Kitts and Nevis 1889–1962 Trinidad and Tobago 20th century 1958–1962 West Indies Federation
⁴Now the San Andrés y Providencia Department of Colombia

Africa

18th century 1792–1961 Sierra Leone 1795–1803 Cape Colony	19th century 1806–1910 Cape Colony 1816–1965 Gambia 1856–1910 Natal 1868–1966 Basutoland (Lesotho) 1874–1957 Gold Coast (Ghana) 1882–1922 Egypt 1884–1966 Bechuanaland (Botswana) 1884–1960 British Somaliland 1887–1897 Zululand 1888–1894 Matabeleland 1890–1980 Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) 1890–1962 Uganda 1890–1963 Zanzibar (Tanzania) 1891–1964 Nyasaland (Malawi) 1891–1907 British Central Africa Protectorate 1893–1968 Swaziland 1895–1920 East Africa Protectorate 1899–1956 Anglo-Egyptian Sudan	20th century 1900–1914 Northern Nigeria 1900–1914 Southern Nigeria 1900–1910 Orange River Colony 1900–1910 Transvaal Colony 1906–1954 Nigeria Colony 1910–1931 South Africa 1911–1964 Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) 1914–1954 Nigeria Colony and Protectorate 1915–1931 South West Africa (Namibia) 1919–1960 Cameroons (Cameroon) ⁵ 1920–1963 Kenya 1922–1961 Tanganyika (Tanzania) ⁵ 1954–1960 Nigeria
⁵League of Nations mandate

Asia

17th Century 1685-1824 Bencoolen (Sumatra)	18th century 1702–1705 Côn Đảo 1757–1947 Bengal (West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh) 1762–1764 Philippines 1795–1948 Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 1796–1965 Maldives	19th century 1819–1826 British Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore) 1826–1946 Straits Settlements 1839–1967 Colony of Aden 1839–1842 Afghanistan 1841–1997 Hong Kong 1841–1941 Kingdom of Sarawak (Malaysia) 1858–1947 British India (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Burma) 1879–1919 Afghanistan 1882–1963 British North Borneo (Malaysia) 1885–1946 Unfederated Malay States 1888–1984 Sultanate of Brunei 1888–1946 Sultanate of Sulu 1891–1971 Muscat and Oman protectorate 1892–1971 Trucial States protectorate 1895–1946 Federated Malay States 1898–1930 Weihai Garrison 1878–1960 Cyprus	20th century 1918–1961 Kuwait protectorate 1920–1932 Iraq⁵ 1921–1946 Transjordan⁵ 1923–1948 Palestine⁵ 1945–1946 South Vietnam 1946–1948 Malayan Union 1946–1963 Sarawak (Malaysia) 1948–1957 Federation of Malaya (Malaysia) since 1960 Akrotiri and Dhekelia (before as part of Cyprus) since 1965 British Indian Ocean Territory
⁵League of Nations mandate

Oceania

18th century 1788–1901 New South Wales	19th century 1803–1901 Van Diemen's Land/Tasmania 1807–1863 Auckland Islands⁶ 1824–1980 New Hebrides (Vanuatu) 1824–1901 Queensland 1829–1901 Swan River Colony/Western Australia 1836–1901 South Australia since 1838 Pitcairn Islands 1841–1907 Colony of New Zealand 1851–1901 Victoria 1874–1970 Fiji⁷ 1877–1976 British Western Pacific Territories 1884–1949 Territory of Papua 1888–1965 Cook Islands⁶ 1889–1948 Union Islands (Tokelau)⁶ 1892–1979 Gilbert and Ellice Islands⁸ 1893–1978 British Solomon Islands⁹	20th century 1900–1970 Tonga (protected state) 1900–1974 Niue⁶ 1901–1942 *Commonwealth of Australia 1907–1953 *Dominion of New Zealand 1919–1942 Nauru 1945–1968 Nauru 1919–1949 Territory of New Guinea 1949–1975 Territory of Papua and New Guinea¹⁰
⁶Now part of the *Realm of New Zealand ⁷Suspended member ⁸Now Kiribati and *Tuvalu ⁹Now the *Solomon Islands ¹⁰Now *Papua New Guinea

Antarctica and South Atlantic

17th century since 1659 St. Helena	19th century since 1815 Ascension Island¹¹ since 1816 Tristan da Cunha¹¹ since 1833 Falkland Islands¹²	20th century since 1908 British Antarctic Territory¹³ since 1908 South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands^12, 13
¹¹Dependencies of St. Helena since 1922 (Ascension Island) and 1938 (Tristan da Cunha) ¹²Occupied by Argentina during the Falklands War of April–June 1982 ¹³Both claimed in 1908; territories formed in 1962 (British Antarctic Territory) and 1985 (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands)

Administrative Divisions of South Africa (1910-1994)

Provinces of South Africa	Province of the Cape of Good Hope · Province of the Orange Free State · Province of the Transvaal · Province of Natal

Non-Independent Homelands	Gazankulu · KaNgwane · KwaNdebele · KwaZulu · Lebowa · Qwaqwa

Independent Homelands	Transkei · Bophuthatswana · Venda · Ciskei

Dependent territories	Mandate of South-West Africa