DIAMONDS, GOLD,AND BRITISHIMPERIALISM
itics, but after Het Volk and the Orangia Unie assumed officein the Trans-
vaal and Orange River Colony and the South African party did so in the
Cape Colony, anti-imperialists throughout Southern Africa could look to
unification as a means of solving their trade squabbles, consolidating the
white South African communities, and eliminating imperial interference .
Accordingly, in May 1908 an intercolonial conference patched up the
railway and customs agreements and recommended that the four parlia-
ments appoint delegates to a national convention to prepare a constitution
for a united South Africa (map 7).
The convention assembled in Durban in October 1908 . There were
thirty delegates with voting rights : twelve from the Cape Colony, eight
from the Transvaal, and five each from the Orange River Colony and
Natal. AILneedless to say,were male and white . Fourteen were Afrikaners,
sixteen were of British origin. Jan Smuts arrived with a well-thought-out
constitutional scheme that he had cleared with the Progressive and Het
Volk members of the Transvaal delegation, as well as with the leaders of the
ruling parties in the Orange River Colony and the Cape Colony. Conse-
GERMAN
SOUTH-WEST
AFRICA
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