in July,--it is then mid-winter in Africa,--he
was still up against it. The Nationalist majority was a phantom that
dogged his official life and political fortunes. The problem now was to
take out sane insurance against a repetition of the trial and
uncertainty which he had undergone.

Fate in the shape of the Nationalist Party played into his hands. Under
the stimulation of the Nationalists a _Vereeniging_ Congress was called
at Bloenfontein late last September. The Dutch word _Vereeniging_ means
"reunion." Hertzog and Tielman Roos, the co-leader of the
secessionists, believed that by bringing the leading representatives of
the two leading parties together the appeal to racial pride might carry
the day. Smuts did not attend but various members of his Cabinet did.

Reunion did anything but reunite. The differences on the republican
issues being fundamental were likewise irreconcilable. The Nationalists
stood pat on secession while the South African Party remained loyal to
its principles of Imperial unity. The meeting ended in a deadlock.

Smuts, a field marshal of politics, at once saw that the hour of
deliverance from his dilemma had arrived. The Nationalists had declared
themselves unalterably for separation. He converted their battle-cry
into coin for himself. He seized the moment to issue a call for a new
Moderate Party that would represent a fusion of the South Africanists
and the Unionists. In one of his finest documents he made a plea for the
consolidation of these constructive elements.

In it he said:

Now that the Nationalist Party is firmly resolved to continue its
propaganda of fanning the fires of secession and of driving the
European races apart from each other and ultimately into conflict
with each other, the moderate elements of our population have no
other alternative but to draw closer to one another in order to
fight that policy.

A new appeal must, therefore, be made to all right-minded South
Africans, irrespective of party or race, to join the new Party,
which will be strong enough to safeguard the permanent interests of
the Union against the disruptive and destructive policy of the
Nationalists. Such a central political party will not only continue
our great work of the past, but is destined to play a weighty role
in the future peaceable development of South Africa.

The end of October witnessed the ratification of this proposal by the
Uni