Empire Cricket Booklet

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BRUCE MURRAY

Natal Carbineers. 44 During the First World War, in which he served in the South West Africa campaign, Bailey likewise raised a group of sharpshooters, inevitably known as 'Bailey's Sharpshooters', to assist the British forces in France. Encouraged by Lionel Curtis, a leading light in Milner's famous 'Kindergarten' of young admini strators, Bailey in 1907 threw his weight behind the movement for a closer union of the colonies under the British flag. 45 In a speech to the Federation of British Women in Johannesburg on 10 January 1907, Bailey underlined what he saw as the pressing need for federation or union so as to formulate a 'common native policy'. In a unified South Africa, he urged, every step should be taken to 'stem the tide' of African advancement, so evident in the Cape, and 'not allow any Native to take the place of any White man'. 46 His efforts on behalf of closer union were met with suspicion by the Boer leaders in the Transvaal and the ever-hostile Merriman in the Cape, with Botha and Smuts declining to attend the dinner he arranged for delegates to the Intercolonial Defence Conference later in January. As Merriman had warned Smuts: 'Beware of A. Bailey - he is an unscrupulous fellow and is trying to convince some people down here that he is a true South African. Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.' In response, Smuts wrote to Merriman on 25 January 1907: 'As regards federation ... one cannot shut one's eyes to the fact that there are sinister forces at work - submarine operations which will have to be carefully watched. Bailey wants to run Federation as a sort of Barnum policy to advertise himself ...' 47 Thereafter Bailey helped to finance the State, the monthly organ of the Closer Union Societies, published in both English and Dutch. In 1909, he launched the non-partisan Union Club movement to establish and maintain social points of contact between 'the two white races' in South Africa. Although not a delegate to the National Convention that drafted the constitution for a new Union of South Africa, Bailey was knighted in 1911 for his contribution to promoting the cause of Union. It was at a juncture when the sale of honours to South African mining magnates helped enrich the coffers of the governing Liberal Party in Britain, though no amount of money could buy J.B. Robinson the peerage he craved. 48

editorship of L. E. Neame, urged moderation on the Chamber of Mines in the developments leading up to the Rand Revolt of white miners in March, Lionel Phillips attributed the paper's 'wobbling' to 'the return of Sir Abe Bailey'. 41 In 1906, the new Liberal government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman granted self-government to the Transvaal and Orange Free State in the effort to promote reconciliation between Boer and Briton, while at the same time attempting to ensure 'a nu merical majority of a loyal and English population'. In the complicated negotiations that followed over the franchise and constituency delimitation for the Transvaal Legislative Assembly, the Progressives divided, with Percy Fitzpatrick and Bailey insisting on the absolute necessity of a system of 'one vote, one value'. The formula adopted by the British gov ernment, and accepted by the Progressive leader, George Farrar, allowed for a 15 per cent unload for rural constituencies, and was calculated to produce 'a British majority, but not a mining majority'. Fitz patrick, who had done his sums carefully, andBailey travelled to London to press for the award of more seats to the Witwatersrand, but to little avail. 42 In the 1907Transvaal general election, Het Volk was returned as the government with 37 seats, as against 21 for the Progressives, six for the former Responsibles, three for Labour and two Independents. Bailey was elected as Progressive member for the largely British-oriented constituency of Krugersdorp, but his hopes of becoming Transvaal premier had been dashed. Instead, he was installed as party whip for the Progressives. In his first intervention in the Transvaal Legislative Assembly, he urged the Botha government to reconsider its decision to begin the immediate repatriation of the Chinese. In press interviews at the outset of his political career, Bailey insisted that: 'I am for the white race being on top of the black. On the native question I am Boer to the backbone.' 43 To underline the point, he arranged to send 150 volunteers of the Transvaal Lancashire and Yorkshire Association, of which he was president, to assist the Natal colonial forces put down the Zulu rebellion of 1906. The men, known as 'Bailey's Rosebuds', were attached to the column under the command of Colonel D. W. Mackay of the