The
vacancy (Pietermaritzburg District) arose from the elevation of F.M
Broome, a Smuts supporter, to the Bench. W. Bawden (Langlaagte)
and H.C, de Wet (Caledon), also known Smuts supporters, and K, Rood
(Vereeniging), who was revealed to be one after 4 September, were absent
from tin Assembly, as was J.G. Derbyshire (Durban Umbilo). The Speaker,
Dr E. G Jansen (Vryheid), did not take part in the vote.

In terms of numbers, there were two main reasons for the rise of
the Smuts wing of the United Party and the decline of the Hertzog
wing.
The first was
General Hertzog's loss of ground to Dr Malan in the Cape and Orange
Free State platteland where he suffered a net loss of seven seats
between 1933 and 4 September 1939.

The second reason, which is the principal theme of this article,6
was the capture by Smuts supporters at the nomination stage in
1938 (in
one case initially before a by-election in 1936) of eight seats
which had returned National Party candidates at the Coalition
of 1933.
Possession of these seats, coupled with his retention of the nucleus
of his pre-Fusion
support and the vote of at least one former Nationalist, was to
prove decisive for Smuts on 4 September.

Although
Hertzog's following in the House of Assembly eroded steadily over the
entire period between the 1933 General Election and
4 September 1939, the 1938 General Election, the first nation-wide
test of Fusion,
when he incurred a net loss of twelve seats, was the largest
single
factor in his decline. It was also the principal factor in Smut's
rise. Smuts was the chief beneficiary of the 1938 General Election,
registering a net gain of eleven seats including the eight taken
from Hertzog at the nomination stage. The National Party gained
six seats.

Until the General Elections of the 1950s and the 1960 Referendum
the 1938 General Election was the most hotly contested since
Union. Not
only was the average percentage poll of 81,73 the highest until
1953,7 but in 32 constituencies (one-fifth of the total number
of seats
in the Union) on the Cape (20), Orange Free State (10) and
Transvaal platteland
(2) the average poll was over 90 per cent, with a high of 95,75
per cent at Hoopstad.8 Fifty-five constituencies had a percentage
poll
of between 80 and 90 per cent and 50 between 70 and
80 per cent. Only eight urban constituencies fell below 70 per
cent and none below 60 per cent.

An
analysis of the Smuts and Hertzog wings must necessarily rely on the
assumption that the 4 September vote disclosed
definitively
the
identities of their members, bringing "out of the woodwork" those
MPs, mainly the new intake of 1938, who had not yet had
an opportunity to demonstrate publicly where their loyalties
lay. With a few exceptions,
the composition of both wings was well defined before 4
September.

Thus
Dr Malan identified for an audience of his supporters in Krugersdorp
in late August three sections of the United
Party
on the neutrality
question. The first, pro-war, headed by Smuts comprised "die grootste
deel van die lede en L.V.'s van die Verenigde Party".
The second, pro-neutrality, included men such as General
J.C.G. Kemp and Senators
A.P.J. Fourie and W.J.C. Brebner. The third, led by Hertzog
himself, was sitting on the fence and refused to take
a position until confronted
by the reality of war.

The Smuts group of 69 was a bit of a mishmash, consisting
of 33 MPs who had entered Parliament at various stages
between 1910 and
Fusion
in 1934 as South African Party representatives, five
former Unionists, one former Labourite, four ex-Nationalists
(one
had been a member
of Tielman Roos's Central Party before this merged
with the United Party
and another had flirted with Roos in 1933), four who
had commenced
their parliamentary careers in 1933 as Independents,
three first elected as United Party Members in post-Fusion
by-elections
up
to 1938, eighteen
who were first elected in 1938, and one in 1939. The
latter had stood unsuccessfully as a Roos candidate
in 1933. The
eighteen elected
in 1938 were the largest single group, followed by
the 1929 intake
of
fifteen

Forty-three of these MPs represented urban constituencies:
seventeen in the Cape, 24 in the Transvaal and one
each in the Orange Free
State and Natal, Twenty-six represented rural constituencies:
thirteen in
the Cape, eight in the Transvaal, one in the Orange
Free State and four in Natal.
General Hertzog's group of 39 was more homogeneous.
Apart from Hertzog himself, eleven had entered Parliament
as
National Party MPs between
the
party's inception and 1929. Ten were first returned
for the party in 1933 and 1934, before Fusion, and
sixteen
as United
Party
Members between
1935 and 1939. One, Col. Jacob Wilkens (Ventersdorp),
started out as an Independent in 1933. Thirty-three
of Hertzog's
MPs represented
rural
constituencies: seven in the Cape, eighteen in the
Transvaal, seven in the Orange Free State and one
in Natal. All
six of his urban
seats were in the Transvaal. By contrast, all of
Dr Malan's 29 MPs represented
rural constituencies, 27 in the Cape and Orange Free
State.

In accordance with the distribution of the language
groups in the country, the majority, but by no
means all, of
General Smuts's
voters would
have been English-speaking and General Hertzog's
Afrikaans-speaking. The vast majority of Dr Malan's
voters would have been
Afrikaners. The Coloured voters in the Cape, numbering
about twenty-five
thousand,
would mostly have supported United Party over National
Party candidates.

If Fusion had lasted a while longer it might not
have mattered who were Smuts men and who Hertzog's.
In many
cases their
parliamentary careers were distinguished mainly
by their votes on 4 September.

Reference
is made by writers on the period, including some of the participants
in the 4 September
vote, to waverers
(Deneys Reitz), "draadsitters" (A.J.
van Wyk), people who had not yet made up their minds (B.K. Long), the
uncommitted (Piet van der Byl) and the uncertain (Bertha Solomon) -- the
numbers vary -- who were courted by Smuts loyalists and Hertzog
loyalists before the decisive vote on the evening of 4 September. Morris
Kentridge, the former Labourite in the Smuts wing, wrote in that connection
of "intensive lobbying".13 The identities
of these people are obscure but they were presumably
to be found mainly
among the 1938
and 1939 intake of MPs, of whom 24 supported
Smuts, and twenty Hertzog.

There
is no reason to doubt that there were indeed waverers and "draadsitters".
The world was being turned upside down and it was quite natural that
MPs should have been concerned about the future and their personal
positions, especially those dependent upon their parliamentary income
for a living. Following A.W. Stadler there may, however, have been
few of the latter because by the early 1930s "Parliament
had become an assembly of 'not-
ables",15 meaning that its members had achieved eminence (and
riches) in other fields before they became
MPs.

It was
less likely that the debate which preceded the vote had much influence
on
the outcome,
even though
the caucus
system was suspended
in the case of the soon-to-be-split United
Party. R. H. Henderson, who supported Smuts
in the vote,
pointed
out
in his memoirs
with
reference to this debate that "there were no conversions by debate, not
one. There never is conversion by Parliamentary debate...",16
a remark that strikes a chord with those
familiar with the restrictions on freedom
of speech and action prevalent in
parliamentary politics
where backbenchers, especially on the government
side, are expected to hold their tongues
on the floor of the chamber
and to vote the party
line.

B. J. Schoeman, who voted for the pro-neutrality
motion, in essence agreed with Henderson's
view in his own
memoirs with
particular
reference to Hertzog's allegedly pro-Hitler
statement.17 Although other participants
contended that there was conversion,
they may subconsciously have dramatised the
situation. This is not to denigrate
the significance of the head-counting
which was conducted over the weekend
2 to 4
September. Nothing in politics is ever
completely cut and
dried and, after all,
even
such
experienced
practitioners as Hertzog and Smuts were
deceived by their strengths: almost to
the last the
former thought
that
he would win and
the latter that he would lose.

Direct contests between Hertzogites and
Malanites in the Cape and Orange Free
State platteland
constituencies had
been a
test of
Fusion's popularity
among Afrikaners because they took
place in areas where
the great majority of voters were Afrikaans-speaking.
That the
outcome
favoured Malan
demonstrated clearly that Fusion had
but limited appeal to the platteland
areas
of those provinces.

It confirmed that Fusion's supposed
triumphs had not dispelled the deep
suspicion
in which grassroots
supporters
of the
original National
Party founded by Hertzog himself,
held Smuts and the urban-orientated English-speaking,
pro-British element
in his wing of the
party. Various local factors may
also have been at play, including
protest votes
against the government's agricultural
policy.

Hertzog
did not lose by much in the way of individual voter support -- his
candidates drew 41 712 votes to
the National Party's 46 229 spread
over
fourteen seats.18 Nonetheless,
the figures suggest that the writing
was on the wall
for him and
that it was only
a matter
of time
before his support in the Cape
and
the Orange Free State, including
his own seat and that of his chief
lieutenant,
N.C. Havenga, succumbed to the
Nationalist pressure. In any event,
contemporary
observers attributed the National
Party's "defeat" in the Orange Free State, where
it garnered 46 231 votes to the United Party's 51 148,19 to General
Hertzog's "personal ascendancy" in
that province.
Both the Hertzog wing and the National
Party were pro-neutrality, so Hertzog's
loss of
seats to Malan
had no bearing
on his defeat in the
House of Assembly except possibly
to make the pro-neutrality vote
more solid
because
some
of his defeated supporters
could have been
unmasked
as Smuts men if they had been present.

On the face of it, therefore, ceteris
paribus, the vote of 4 September
turned on the seats
that Smuts
acquired
from
Hertzog. All eight
MPs were in the Assembly that
day. Eight votes deducted from the pro-war
total of 80 and added to the
pro-neutrality total of 67 would have given Hertzog
the victory by
75 to 72,
without
the need
for the
Speaker, a Hertzog man, to exercise
a
casting vote.

To
his contemporaries Smuts, "Slim Jannie", blessed with
the "flexibility of dishonesty",21 was a masterly political
tactician, perhaps the most astute in South Africa.22 Thus National
Party opponents of Fusion, including Dr Malan himself, had predicted
in 1933-1934 that "genl. Smuts gaan horn [Generaal Hertzog] uitoorle".23
Two writers of the period, F.S. Crafford and 0. Pirow, did much to
help propagate the view which persists to this day that Smuts's victory
on 4 September 1939 was evidence of the "uitoorle" and
the astuteness.

The contemporary National Party
press also took this position.
Thus an
editorial in
Die Volksblad
on 5
September 1939,
before it was
known that the Governor-General had rejected Hertzog's request for a dissolution of
Parliament and a General Election, held that:

Genl. Smuts het in die afgelope sesjaar sy kaarte knaphandig gespeel.
Hy het sy tyd geduldig afgewag, maar intussen sy posisie in die Verenigde
Party gaandeweg versterk. Nie alleen het hy gesorg dat by gehou het
wat hy had toe hy met genl. Hertzog saamgesmelt het nie, maar hy
het tewens eike moontlike geleentheid te baat geneem om 'n
oud-Sap in 'n
Nasionale setel in te skuif. Vandag het ons die toestand dat die
verteenwoordigers van ou Nasionale vestings soos Frankfort,
Rustenburg, Potchefstroom
en Carolina hulle geskaar het langs die Imperialiste. Ja, hulle sit
selfs saam met die Dominioniete!

Smuts's propagandists tried to exploit the narrowness of his victory
and the identity of the seats to which he owed it. A confidential
fund-raising memorandum issued in December 1939 by the Union Unity
Fund, which financed
the wartime government's unofficial internal propaganda arm, the
Union Unity Truth Service, asserted that chaos, bloodshed and economic
collapse
would have attended a policy of neutrality:

How narrow the escape from these horrors will be appreciated when
we realise that included in the majority were the members for
the following
constituencies:

Calvinia, Kimberley (District), Frankfort, Potchefstroom, Rustenburg,
Carolina, North-East Rand -- all of which were Hertzog strongholds
before the Coalition in 1933 which led to the formation of the
United Party. Had they gone against us, the Neutrality (pro-Nazi)
Party would
actually have had a majority.

Potchefstroom, Rustenburg and Carolina were among the constituencies
which passed from Hertzog to Smuts in 1938. The Orange Free
State seat of Frankfort had first returned a Smuts supporter
in 1936
at the death
of the sitting member, J.B. (Pen) Wessels, who had held it
since 1915 as a member of the old National Party. The other
four were
Brakpan, North Rand, Pretoria West and Wakkerstroom. All but
Frankfort were
Transvaal seats.

If the meaning of the results of the direct contests between
the supporters of Hertzog and Malan is clear enough, it is
less clear
why Smuts should
have
improved his position in the United Party at Hertzog's expense.
This despite its apparent confirmation of his astuteness.

It
has been suggested 27 that the holders of some of the eight seats -- H.
N. W. Botha (Frankfort), J. M. Conradie (Rustenburg), J.P. Fourie (Carolina)
and H. van der Merwe (Potchefstroom) are mentioned -- crossed
over from Hertzog to Smuts on 4 September 1939. But this
does not stand up to examination because, as Die Volksblad
pointed out, these men
were Smuts supporters before they received the United Party
nominations for their constituencies and their votes could
not have come as a surprise.
It was with specific reference to most of the eight cases,
mentioning the nominees by name that Die Transvaler reported
before the
1938 General Election on the growth of the Smuts wing of
the party in
the Transvaal
at the expense of the Hertzog wing.

Already
on 11 February 1938 Die Transvaler's cartoon, "Wie hou
die leisels", was making this point. It depicted a large, smug
former Unionist -- a financial magnate -- driving the cart
of government and a somewhat smaller, equally smug former "Sap" -- a
farmer -- seated in the body of the cart facing the rear, legs
draped over the tailboard, gazing contentedly at an even smaller, worried
former "Nat" -- another farmer-- trying
to climb on. The dialogue was superfluous:

Oud-Nat: Kerels, waar's my piek dan?
Oud-Sap: Hierdie lamlendige karretjie kan ons nie meer
almal hou nie, ou broer -- ek voel so jammer vir jou!
Oud-Unionis (binnensmonds): Een ou boer sal nog gaan,
maar die tweede sal ek wraggies nie weer oplaai nie.
Die vrotsige
ou perd
[the people]
trek ook so sleg.

Dr H.F. Verwoerd claimed in an editorial in the same
edition of the newspaper, perhaps not without justification,
that
despite the temptation
to deal the National Party a severe blow there had
been no general election immediately after Fusion
because "Die oud-Nasionaliste
was bevrees dat hulle in die onderskeie kiesafdelings opsy geskuif
sou word deur die oud-S.A.P. lede en genl. Hertzog wou nie he dat genl.
Smuts se aanhang versterk word teenoor syne nie."

There can be no doubt about H. N. W. (Manie) Botha's
loyalties. He had been a Brigadier-General in the
Great War with service
in East
Africa. Before that he had played an active role
in the suppression of the 1914 rebellion. He became
a
Major
General and Officer
Commanding the abortive Third Armoured Division
in the Second World War.30
He was at first opposed for the Frankfort nomination
in 1936 by a Bloemfontein
advocate, H.J. Edeling, but the latter withdrew.
He does not seem to have been opposed in 1938.

In
an indignant editorial in Die Volksblad at the time
of Botha's nomination, Dr A.J.R. van Rhijn
called him
'"n uiterste Sap". The former
South African Party, he wrote, was not content just to be in a majority
in the United Party but in "ou Nasionale setels word Sappe as
kandidate gestel om op hierdie wyse die Sap-vleuel in die Verenigde
Party nog verder te versterk".
He implied that the agreement of the South African
and National Parties not to challenge each other
at the 1933
General Election
for the
seats each was holding at the time was still
operative. But that applied
only to the situation in 1933. By 1937 it had
been decided to take action against candidates
for United
Party nominations
who
canvassed
party members for votes on the basis of their
previous affiliations.

Why did Manie Botha, a known Smuts-man, gain
nomination in what was obviously a Hertzog
stronghold, the
seat previously having
been held
by one of the general's closest friends? A
letter in Die Volksblad on 15 September 1939 claimed
that:

Te Vrede, op 10 Februarie 1936 by 'n openbare
vergadering, het hy [Botha] van die verhoog
voor twaalfhonderd
mense, toe hy aan
genl.
Conroy se
sy gestaan het, gese: 'Ek is trots om 'n
volgeling van genl. Hertzog te wees en staan rotsvas
agter horn. Ek
sal horn
100 persent steun,
deur dik en dun.' Op hierdie plegtige belofte
het Frankfort en Vrede se kiesers vir horn
gestem en
horn as hul
verteenwoordiger na die
Volksraad gestuur, om genl. Hertzog te help
Suid-Afrika se belange
te behartig.

Another reason, which applies equally to
the other cases, was suggested by N. L.
(Tjaart) van der
Walt, United
Party Transvaal
Provincial
Secretary from March 1939 until the break
up
of the party:

Die oud-Nasionaliste het uit hul pad gegaan
om hul nuwe party-vriende tuis te laat
voel in die
party
waarvan genl. Hertzog die
leier was. Persoonlike vriende en
geharde ondersteuners van genl. Smuts
uit die jaar vroeg is in tal van gevalle
in
die besture
geplaas,
ten einde
die opregtheid
omtrent
samewerking met die daad te betoon,
net soos die Frankforters gedoen het
toe
hulle genl.
Manie Botha
tot partykandidaat
gekies het ...

Apart from Manie Botha, two others
among the eight were South African
Party supporters
long
before
1933. Col.
W.R. Collins,
United Party
Chief Whip, had held Ermelo for the
South African Party from 1916 to
1933, then
for the United
Party until
1938. He lost
the Ermelo
nomination
in 1938 to a local attorney, David
Jackson, according to Die Transvaler
a former
Nationalist, who was
said to have
packed
the party membership
roll with "poor whites" and
to have conducted a campaign against
him in the constituency.
Jackson's victory was decisive. In
a "miniature election" (the
terminology of the time) for the nomination he received 2116 votes,
Collins 1 505 and a third candidate 574.36 Collins was then mentioned
as a possible candidate for Boksburg and Lydenburg. In the end he was
nominated and elected for Wakkerstroom.

The
sitting Member for Pretoria West, Col.
M. S. W. du Toit, a retired
Deputy-Commissioner of Police
who
had
been returned
for
the National
Party in 1929, did not seek re-election.
I. (Claud)
Wallach of Wallach's Printing and
Publishing Company and Die
Volkstem, secured
the United
Party nomination at a "miniature
election",
drawing 650 votes to his opponent's
575.37 For years he had been a
business associate
of Smuts and Louis Esselen, the
party's General Secretary.

If
old "Saps" could not have been "oorstappers" (a
term of reproach in the context of 4 September), one old "Nat" certainly
was. Lt. Col. K. Rood, the incumbent at Vereeniging, had entered the
Assembly as a National Party Member in 1929. Absent on 4 September -- he
was on his way back to South Africa
from Europe -- he opted for
Smuts on his return. The indications
are, however, that he had changed
sides some time before.

Die
Transvaler of 19 March 1938 quoted him to the effect
that,
while people
wanted to
trip
him up, "ek weet dat daar nog genoeg regdenkende
Afrikaners is wat sal sorg dat ek my setel behou: ek is oortuig daarvan
dat al die lede van die ou S. A. P. agter my staan", which was
possibly evidence of his leanings. His man of the world background
as a director of industrial and insurance companies 39 his military
experience -- he was a member of the Defence Council 40 -- and
his easy familiarity with Louis Esselen, a convinced Smuts man, support
the hypothesis that he was more comfortable in the Smuts milieu. In
1934 he had collaborated with Esselen on the propaganda booklet "What
Coalition has achieved for South Africa." He
does not seem to have been
opposed for the United Party
nomination in 1938.

Another
genuine "oorstapper" was C.G.S. Heyns (North-East
Rand.) Unlike Rood, Heyns may have been influenced by his personal
financial position.41 Others sometimes referred to as "oorstappers",
such as Colin Steyn (Bloemfontein
City) and Louw Steytler
(Kimberley District) had,
by associating
with Tielman Roos before
Coalition, already severed
their connection
with Nationalism.

If
the idea of "oorstappery" by
the holders of the eight
seats does not hold water another
explanation, also put
forward by
A.J. van Wyk in VyfDae,
at least by implication, has Louis
Esselen as the villain.

Van
Wyk writes: "Sedert 1934 was die partymasjien in sy [Esselen's]
hande en het hy Smuts-manne ingestoot waar tevore Hertzog-manne was -- tot
in die Volksraad" (pp. 18-19), an assertion he repeats on page
115. "(Vroeer
is vermeld dat Esselen,
as hoofsekretaris
van die VP, die partymasjinerie
in sy hande gehad het
en, waar hy kon, 'n
Smuts-man
in die pick van 'n
Hertzog man gestoot
het)."

In
the sense that he preferred to work
outside the glare
of public attention,
Louis Esselen
was somewhat
atypical
in the
context
of South African
politics. But enough
is known of him to
suggest that he left
deep footprints in
the
sand of the country's
political history
in the
years after
1921 when he became
General Secretary
of the South
African
Party. The lack of
a good (indeed, any
political
biography
or
even a long on
him is an unfortunate
hiatus in our historical
writing.
Pending such
a study, the United
Party papers at
the University
of South Africa
provide researchers
with fascinating
glimpses of the
man,
his style
and his influence.

Applied
to the eight constituencies
under
consideration,
the implication
of van
Wyk's contention
that Esselen
pushed Smuts
men whenever
he could is that
he steered the
nominations in
these
cases in
the direction
of Smuts rather
than Hertzog
supporters. While Van Wyk
does not provide
supporting evidence,
this proposition
has a certain
appeal
when borne
in mind that
all but
Frankfort were
Transvaal
constituencies
and that
Esselen's grip
on the Transvaal
machine
was
probably stronger
than in the
case of the
other provinces.

For
public consumption, the United
Party's line on nominations
was
that "being
a democratic
party, it abides
by the decision
of the majority
of its members
in regard to
the selection
of candidates
as
in other matters;
and no leader
or governing
body has the
right to force
a candidate
on to any constituency
against the
wishes of the
members concerned.
Only in certain
circumstances,
when asked
to do
so, under the
provisions
of Art. 8(e)
and/or par.
14 of the Regulations
can the Head Committee
take a hand
in the nomination
of a candidate."

This
had been the South
African Party's
line.
There is
at the University
of South
Africa the
draft
in Smuts's
own hand
of a telegram
to
the South
African Party MP for
Queenstown
who, opposed
for
the
nomination
before the "Coalition" election of 1933, had appealed to