nists, who had founded aggressive trade unions and a La.bour party in the
Transvaal. A similar class division existed among the British in the Cape
Province and in Natal, the one province with a British electoral majority.
Moreover, as we have seen, the formula written into the constitution for the
division of the country into unequal electoral divisions :favoredthe rural,
that is to say the Afrikaner voters. From the beginning, Jameson, Farrar,
and FitzPatrick, the leaders of the Unionist party, found it expedient to
establish cordial relations with Botha and Smuts, with a view to influenc-
ing their policy; and in 1921 the South African party absorbed the rem-
nants of the Unionists.
Botha and Smuts, meanwhile, were losing control over much of the
Afrikaner electorate, which resented their policy of reconciliation. James
Barry Munnik Hertzog, the Orange Free State leader who had already
crossed swords with Smuts for his failure to give Dutch equality with
English in the Transvaal schools, joined Botha's cabinet in
119 10 with
misgivings. He soon quarreled with his colleagues, and inJanuary 19 14, he
founded a new National party, committed to protecting the cultural and
economic interests of Afrikaners and dissociating South Africa from the