Empire Cricket Booklet

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ABE BAILEY AND THE IMPERIAL CRICKET CONFERENCE

In the first general election of the new Union of South Africa in September 1910, Bailey stood in Krugersdorp for the 'British party', the Unionists under Jameson, who had amalgamated the Cape and Transvaal Progressives. In a close contest he lost to Jan Langerman, the candidate of the South African Party, the party of Prime Minister Botha, a man Bailey had come to admire. By then, Bailey's commitment to the 'British party' was being questioned, and Geoffrey Robinson (later Dawson), editor of the Johannesburg evening newspaper, the Star, blamed him and his newspapers for undermining the Unionist effort. Robinson complained that Bailey ran his papers in his own 'personal interest and not in the interest of the side� that they habitually 'boomed' him to an extent that 'would nauseate anyone' and at the expense of the party. 'The whole point,' he charged, 'is that you have remained closely connected, to put it at the least, with these two papers during a very long campaign in which you have been standing as a Unionist while they have been disparaging every Unionist candidate but yourself, and supporting candidates in opposition to Jameson's men. 49 When Bailey was returned as an independent for Krugersdorp in 1915, he sat in parliament with the South African Party, not the Unionists. 'Sir Abe Bailey may well be called the maker of South African cricket,' the Cricketer magazine pronounced in its obituary of August 1940, 'for in its early days he put his hand deep in his pocket in order to encourage and promote its growth, and in addition it is certain that he financed at least two tours.' It added that 'no one who was there will ever forget his delight when South Africa won that famous Test match on 4 January 1906'. 50 In a thrilling finish at the Wanderers, South Africa scored their first Test victory, in their twelfth Test match, defeating England by a single wicket, and occasioning a great celebration thereafter at Bailey's Belgravia home. South Africa went on to win the series 4-1. Within seventeen years, Bailey's great ambition for South African cricket - that it should compete on an equal footing with England - had been realised. He was 'doubly pleased' when Bailey and the Rise of South African Cricket

South Africa won their first Test against Australia in Adelaide in January 1911. As the African World, Bailey's London weekly, announced, it was to his 'enterprise and encouragement that the high position South Africa now occupies in the cricketing world is almost entirely due'. 51 Apart from one season (1911/12) as president, Bailey held no official position in SACA, but after the South African War his money was to give him enormous influence over its affairs, notably as regards international or imperial cricket. With SACA itself severely strapped financially, it was Bailey's initiative and money that underpinned the emergence of South Africa as a first-class cricketing country in the decade after the war. In the view of his critics, he became something of a dictator in South African cricket, in the mould of 'Cecil John Rhodes and Sir William Milton', using 'his persuasive and plausible argument and considerable wealth to get his way'. 52 He also used his wealth to build up his teams. In particular, he recruited university-educated cricket ing talent from England into his service, in so doing strengthening British influence in the Transvaal as well as his teams. His two notable recruits were R. 0. 'Reggie' Schwarz and Frank Mitchell, both Cam bridge educated, both England rugby internationals and both first-class cricketers, Schwarz having repre sented Middlesex as a batsman and Mitchell having played both Tests against South Africa during Lord Hawke's 1898/99 tour. Both served Bailey in the capacity of private secretary, and both played their cricket for the Wanderers and Transvaal, which Bailey helped develop into the power-house of South African cricket. Above all ., Bailey sought to build up the strength of South Africa's cricket by facilitating and financing international competition for South African cricketers. For arranging Lord Hawke's visits to South Africa in 1895/96 and 1898/99, and organising and financing the controversial South African tour of England in 1901, in the midst of the South African War, the lead was taken by J. D. Logan, the Cape hotelier, and the Western Province Cricket Union, whose teams had dominated in the Currie Cup in the 1890s. Once the war was over, and British ascendancy established over