Documents 181–273
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2010
Summary
The documents in Part VI open with a group of letters, written during the second half of 1902, which show Smuts, after disbanding his commandos and visiting his relations in the Cape Colony, returning to Pretoria to re-occupy his rifled house and start practice all over again as ‘plain Mr Smuts’ while his wife remained in Pietermaritzburg to recover from an operation. They also show him suffering from the emotional effects of defeat. He found assuagement to some extent by writing about the war—besides the Memoirs and the earlier attempts at a book on the Cape Expedition, there are some war-time sketches among his papers. Assuagement was also sought in trying to help his stricken countrymen. Several letters reveal his efforts to ease the lot of the Cape rebels, to help prisoners of war and members of the war-time Boer Deputation to get home, and to organize relief for the ruined farmers.
At the end of 1902 the news that Chamberlain was to make a South African tour and visit the Transvaal roused the Boer leaders there to concerted action against certain aspects of Milner's regime, especially his assault on the Dutch language in his education policy and his intention to import Chinese labourers for the gold-mines. Soon they were committed to a political struggle. Evading Milner's attempt to include them in the nominated Legislative Council, they decided to create an organized opposition.
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- Selections from the Smuts Papers , pp. 3 - 202Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1966