Gysbert Reitz Hofmeyr

Gysbert Reitz Hofmeyr (12 February 1871 – 12 March 1942) was a South African civil servant and the first Administrator of South West Africa (now Namibia) under the League of Nations Mandate. As secretary for the Transvaal delegation to the National Convention in 1908–1909, Hofmeyr was a witness to the unification of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and Orange River colonies.

In 1920 Hofmeyr was appointed as the first Administrator of South West Africa under the League of Nations Mandate by Jan Smuts (then Prime Minister of South Africa). Historian John Wellington's view is that in doing so Hofmeyr failed to “promote to the utmost the material and moral well-being and social progress of the inhabitants of the territory” as required under the League of Nations Mandate.

Hofmeyr's actions during the Bondelswarts Rebellion in 1922, described by Ruth First as "the Sharpeville of the 1920s", were controversial, especially the use of warplanes, aerial bombs and strafing against lightly armed Blacks. He was criticized by the Permanent Mandates Commission report into the Bondelswarts affair. Although the report held that Hofmeyr had "acted wisely in taking prompt steps to uphold government authority", it found that the repression of the uprising was "carried out with excessive severity".

Hofmeyr stood for election to the Parliament of South Africa for the Riversdale constituency in 1929 but lost to a nationalist opponent who taunted him about his Bondelswarts misjudgements. Hofmeyr sued the opponent for libel and ultimately won the case, but the loss at the election effectively ended Hofmeyr's political career.

Early years Hofmeyr was the third son and fifth child born to Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (born in Cape Town in 1835, died in Riversdale in 1923) and Christina Jacoba van Zyl (born in 1838, died in Riversdale in 1921), Afrikaners who farmed in Riversdale in the British Cape Colony.

Hofmeyr worked on the family farm while growing up and only had three or four years of formal education. Later that year Hofmeyr became Magistrate's Clerk at Oudtshoorn, and he was subsequently attached to the Circuit Court and to various magistracies in the Cape Colony.

In 1895 the Crown colony of British Bechuanaland, the southern part of the Bechuanaland Protectorate), was incorporated into the Cape Colony. The northern part remained a British Protectorate until its independence as Botswana in 1966). Hofmeyr was selected to move to Vryburg and Mafeking to assist in assimilating the system of administration there with that in the Cape Colony. — a prominent politician and member of the Cape parliament for Stellenbosch from 1879 to 1909. The political activities of both Onze Jan Hofmeyr and Jan Smuts made a deep impression on Gysbert Reitz Hofmeyr, and the younger Hofmeyr decided to move closer to the corridors of power. Writing to Mr A Brink of Kimberley on 3 April 1919, Hofmeyr stated that "even making due allowance for anyone being impelled by blood relationship to a zealous veneration for the memory of a great kinsman, I venture to say that the considered verdict of the country as a whole will endorse my view that the late Onze Jan was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, statesman and patriots South Africa has produced".

Cape and Transvaal parliamentary roles (1897–1907) In 1897 Hofmeyr became Private Secretary to Dr Thomas Te Water, the Colonial Secretary of the Cape, Flint recommended that South Africa look at the Canadian example, and use the same language relating to federations to allow it to take advantage of existing judicial determinations. The leader believed that union would be the "more effective and expeditious agency in completing the cementing process between the two great white races of South Africa and by a "pooling of the best brains of the two peoples". Hofmeyr argued that "the surrender of local self-government and prejudice must occur gradually" – but the leader criticised this as too timid and lacking boldness. The leader states, "a precarious stepping-stone (federation) is poor security, and liable to submersion when most wanted. Why not build a permanent bridge straightway of guaranteed strength and safety. This is unification". Houman's advice was to not leave a "shred of autonomy or independence to any part of your country", and to frame the body politic so that "an injury of one will be the concern of all, i.e. that England cannot injure one part without injuring the whole". At the time, Botha was Prime Minister of the Transvaal. In response, a leader in the Transvaal Weekly of 3 April 1908 remarked that this allegation was "decidedly unfair" and "still more unjust to Mr Hofmeyr to consider that he would act in such a capacity". Further support for Hofmeyr came on 13 April 1908 when Lionel Phillips complimented Hofmeyr's writings, saying he had presented them "in a very thoughtful and in a very dispassionate spirit".

National Convention (1908–1909)

In August 1908 Hofmeyr was appointed secretary for the Transvaal delegation to the National Convention.

While Smuts and Merriman agreed on many things, Merriman was concerned about the Native franchise. He predicted that the Cape would not want to give it up, and that the Transvaal and others would not want to adopt it.

Prominent members of the Transvaal delegation included General Louis Botha, then Prime Minister of the Transvaal and later the first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa; General Smuts, Colonial Secretary of the Transvaal and later the second Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa (and the prime minister that appointed Gysbert Reitz Hofmeyr as Administrator of South West Africa in 1920); and Sir James Percy Fitzpatrick (a mining financier and author of the classic children's book Jock of the Bushveld), The pressure on the delegates to reach agreement was intense; each delegate knew that a colony which failed to join at once could not expect to obtain ground-floor privileges later.

Against these concessions, the majority succeeded in imposing a political colour bar to the extent of denying non-Europeans the right of sitting in the exclusively white Union Parliament.

Inner History of the National Convention of South Africa (1912) In 1912 Hofmeyr was asked, as the Clerk of the House of Assembly of the Union and as one of the secretaries to the National Convention, to read and express an opinion as to the impartiality of the record contained in Sir Edgar Harris Walton's proposed book The Inner History of the National Convention of South Africa. Walton had attended the National Convention as one of the Cape delegates. Hofmeyr's report was deferential. "It would be impertinent if I were to profess to be able to criticise the merits of Sir Edgar's work". Nonetheless Hofmeyr did suggest some amendments. Hofmeyr felt emboldened to do so as "there is the extenuating circumstance that, as I had made a somewhat exhaustive study of the history of Closer Union movements in other countries with the view of assisting in the collection of information that might be useful to the Convention, I had taken perhaps a keener interest in the efforts of that body in their endeavours to arrive at a practical solution ... than my ordinary duties as one of the secretaries would have demanded, and for that reason perhaps the proceedings of that great gathering of South African statesmen have left on my mind a deeper and more lasting impression than would probably otherwise have been the case." Walton wrote "Mr Hofmeyr's report is printed as an appendix to the book and it has been thought better to adopt that course rather than to attempt to reconstruct those portions to which Mr Hofmeyr alludes". The book was also certified by Lord de Villiers, the President of the National Convention. Walton notes in an annotation to Hofmeyr's memorandum that he did implement the alterations suggested by Lord de Villiers. The award was often made to holders of high office in territories of the British Empire.

Maritz rebellion and the invasion of South West Africa (1914–1915)

Following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, at the request of the British government, General Louis Botha, prime minister of South Africa, agreed to invade German South West Africa. South African troops were mobilised along the border between South Africa and German-controlled South West Africa. Smuts made two important decisions: to use only volunteers for the invasion of South West Africa, and secondly, to take the field himself as military commander. He found support from senator General Koos de la Rey, a Boer general during the Second Boer War who had led the government forces against the white strikers on the Rand earlier in 1914 and was a leading advocate of Boer independence. According to General Beyers it was to discuss plans for the simultaneous resignation of leading army officers as protest against the government's actions.

On 12 October 1914 Hofmeyr sent a telegraph to General Beyers in which Hofmeyr says "Ik weet dat de opstand uw goedkeuring niet wegdraagt maar terwijl uw naam genoemd word geeft toch dadelik afkeuring publiek to kennen ten einde misbruik van uw naam hierin to voorkomen" Hofmeyr continued: "I remonstrated with him to no purposes and thus ended most regrettably a valued personal friendship."

South Africa had become a self-governing British dominion in 1910, but the symbols of conquest deployed in South West Africa: the Union Jack and a banner proclaiming "Britannia still rules the waves" raised in Windhoek remained those of the British Empire.

"An Undivided White South Africa: the Ideal Union" (1916) After the bitterness and heightened emotions of the Maritz rebellion, in 1916 Hofmeyr produced a short pamphlet, in both English and in Dutch, entitled "An Undivided White South Africa: The Ideal Union and how it may be achieved".

Hofmeyr continued throughout this time to be interested in constitutional affairs and was regarded as an expert. In January 1920 Thomas Watt, from the office of the Minister of the Interior, writes to Hofmeyr thanking him for agreeing to write an article on the Union constitution.

Hofmeyr's expressed objective was "to effect union of the white people so as to have a strong and happy nation, maintaining their virility, ruling themselves and a contented Native population in the common interests of all... governed in such a manner that the vast resources of the land might be developed ... in such a way that peace and good order be continuously maintained within, and security provided against attack from without, so that the new commonwealth would add to and not draw on the strength of the Empire of which it would form part."

Hofmeyr's ideals would soon be tested with his appointment as Administrator of South West Africa.

Hofmeyr's views on language Hofmeyr was fluent in both Dutch and English, often publishing in both languages simultaneously. In Hofmeyr's private papers his letters to and from family are mainly in Dutch but include parts in English.

Hofmeyr was less tolerant of Afrikaans. In 1919 Hofmeyr wrote to Dr Steytler, the priest of the Dutch Reformed Church in Mouille Point, saying that he supported Dr Steytler in seeking to maintain Dutch (as opposed to Afrikaans) as the language of the church. Hofmeyr spoke in the letter of "onze prachtige taal – de taal der edelste en diepste gedachten van onze voorouders"

The new South African military administration introduced a number of reforms, which were not motivated by any commitment to humanitarianism or Cape liberalism but rather from South Africa's desire to be permitted to retain South West Africa after the war ended.

League of Nations Mandate

In 1918 Lloyd George announced that the "desire and wishes of the peoples must be the dominant factor" in determining the fate of the German colonies.

South West Africa's fate was decided as part of the peace negotiations after World War I. Notwithstanding Lloyd George's grand promise of self-determination, the Great Powers heading the thirty-two countries forming the League of Nations were not ready to permit the Natives of South West Africa (or other former German possessions) to decide how they should be governed. The Great Powers resolved that no territory taken from the defeated nations should be treated as spoils of war. They were to be territories under Mandate, the Mandatories to be answerable to the League for the well-being of the aboriginal people inhabiting them.

Nonetheless, Wellington notes that the report was hypocritical, given that much of the treatment of the Natives of South West Africa by the Germans can be paralleled in British colonial history. Elkins then considers the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in 1919, the aerial bombing by the Royal Air Force during the Iraqi Revolt in 1920, the Irish War of Independence between 1919 and 1921, and the suppression of the 1919 Egyptian revolution. Historian John Newsinger in a chapter dealing with the use of excessive force by the British in the period 1916 to 1926 adds the Shanghai massacre of 1925.

Elkins shows that such actions by the British did not end in the 1920s. Elkins recounts British actions in the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, the Bengal famine of 1943, the atrocities committed in the suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the 1950s, in the Malayan emergency from 1948 to 1960, and in the Cyprus emergency between 1955 and 1959, amongst others.

Under Article 2 of the Mandate for German South West Africa the Mandatory was obliged to "promote to the utmost the material and moral well-being and social progress of the inhabitants of the territory". Furthermore, "the Mandatory shall see that ... no forced labour is permitted except for essential public works and services, and then only for adequate remuneration".

Appointment of Hofmeyr as Administrator of South West Africa

South West Africa remained under martial law until September 1920.

Smuts, at this point Prime Minister of South Africa, chose Hofmeyr to inaugurate a civil regime with effect from 1 October 1920, and appointed him for a five year term. The salary was set at £2,000 per year (around £112,500 in 2024 money). Remuneration included a free residence in Windhoek and such local allowances as pertained to the office at such time, around the same as the Administrator of one of the smaller Provinces in SA. Merriman then recommends a book, The Black Problem, by Davidson Don Tengo Jabavu, the son of John Tengo Jabavu, with the recommendation that the author is "worth a wilderness of Sol Plaatjes".

Elsewhere in the Cape Times on 3 August 1920 it was reported that "No one can doubt that the appointment, from a public point of view, is a wise one... [Hofmeyr] possesses a charm of manner and a kindness of heart which are bound to win the confidence and esteem of those with whom he will have official dealings in the South-West Protectorate... Courteous to all, he has been ever ready to help anyone over a difficulty when occasion demanded".

However, the appointment was not met with universal approval. In Hofmeyr's papers there is an undated clipping from an unnamed newspaper (with the handwritten note "please destroy"). The article noted that Sir Howard Gorges will cease as Administrator of South West Africa and may be asked to be High Commissioner of South Africa in London, "a post that calls for far-seeing intelligence, initiative, forcefulness, tact, and administrative ability, and of these Sir Howard Gorges is a happy combination".

After lavishing praise on Sir Howard Gorges the article was decidedly lukewarm about Hofmeyr's appointment, saying that "the selection ... scarcely carries conviction with those who understand the peculiar requirements and the uncommon difficulties of the Administratorship of South-West."

Hofmeyr's frustration with his support team does mirror the experience of Gorges. Hancock reports that while Smuts was lucky in finding an experienced colonial administrator to put in charge of South West Africa in 1915, Gorges felt himself constrained many times to complain to Smuts about the poor quality of his subordinates in the administration and police.

Hofmeyr noted that the Germans in South West Africa were upset with his view that "the future destiny of South-West Africa was identical with that of the Union of South Africa of which it had already become an integral or inseparable portion". No civil courts were established, but military magistrate's courts exercised criminal jurisdiction. This continued up to the creation of the League of Nations Mandate over South West Africa.

The Commission recommended that "the form of government ... should be ... the form of government at present prevailing in the four Provinces of the Union, giving the population full representation in a Provincial Council and in the Union Parliament. When that stage has been reached, the Protectorate will be administered as a fifth Province of the Union... but subject always to the conditions of the Mandate.

One of Hofmeyr's first acts as Administrator was to convene an Advisory Council of six white settlers to advise him. The members were to be representative of the farming, commercial, mining, wage-earning and Native interests.

Under Proclamation No. 1 of 1921 the duties of the Advisory Council were to advise the Administrator on the raising of revenue, the appropriation of monies for public services, matters of general policy and any other matter requested by the Administrator.

At the first meeting Hofmeyr appealed to the Council, saying that "we are called upon to discourage all petty mindedness and by all means in our power to encourage broad-mindedness".

Economic measures Hofmeyr's objective was to establish a new colonial order, including a smooth-running economy of direct benefit to South Africa.

The German methods of dispossessing the Africans of their lands varied. Initially there were cunning trading deals and the imposition of questionable boundary agreements.

The Germans later resorted to force to subjugate the Natives, after which land was confiscated as spoils of war. Some of this land had been allotted to white farmers during the German period, but much remained in government ownership.

During the early Mandate period segregation was taken a stage further. The creation of further Reserves was explicitly intended to engineer a thoroughgoing racial segregation; these measures stemmed directly from the segregationist policies being energetically implemented in South Africa at this time. The additional Reserves were almost always in the less desirable areas, where the land was poor and considered to be unfit for white settlement.

According to Ruth First "the tribes looked on in stupefaction. They had heard the promises of Lord Buxton, Governor General of the Union, who after the military occupation of 1915 had promised the Herero their "old freedom" along with great possessions of land and cattle. Some unoccupied lands were allocated to the Herero by the military administration, but the Administration that succeeded it under Hofmeyr regarded these as "black islands" of a temporary nature".

But the actual proclamation of Reserves by Hofmeyr was only half of that recommended by the Commission: he returned to the Natives only 2,500,000 hectares (so around 4.4% of the land available)

In 1925, when the water shortage in the new African Reserves was critical, the Mandates Commission asked whether the Administration could not meet the cost of more boreholes.

Under the German regime, the Germans had shot the hunting dogs when the Black's success in hunting had led to a reduction in the number of labourers offering services to settlers, Farmers, particularly those in the south, put pressure on Hofmeyr to increase the Dog Tax so that Blacks would be forced to seek work with them.

The levying of this and other taxes contributed to pressures on Blacks to enter the labour market; money now had to be earned to meet taxation demands. This practice had ceased during the period of martial law.

In addition, non-Europeans could not enter or leave the territory nor travel within the territory without a permit. Hofmeyr's 1921 Report stated that "Native education is in the hands of the Catholic Mission, the Evangelical Mission, and the Finnish Mission. The teachers are to some extent trained, but no training of teachers has been undertaken since the beginning of the war. Some support is provided by government grants".

Hofmeyr did little to improve Black education. In his 1922 Administrator's Report, Hofmeyr stated that "since the arrival of the missionaries, from the earliest times, the teaching of the Native children has been entirely in the hands of the missionaries who were subsidised by the late government. Owing to the ravages of the many wars, very meagre results have been achieved... There are no trained Native teachers available. It is not possible on account of the language difficulty to make use of trained teachers from the union.

In 1925 a limited form of self-government was granted to all British nationals in the territory. This included all of the Germans who had been "naturalised" in 1923.

Only whites were allowed to vote. No Black representatives were permitted and no Black was able to vote.

In 1889 the Bondelswarts "sold" 60,000 square kilometres of land to the English company Karas Khoma Exploration and Prospecting Syndicate. When Theodor Leutwein, the German colonial administrator, visited the Bondelswarts in 1895, he was surprised at the contents of the agreement, and could only attribute Willem's action to the fact that he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of signing. and the purchase was not allowed in its full extent by the German administration, which in 1892 granted the Syndicate a concession of 50,000 square km on the condition that the company should build a railway from Luderitz to the interior. He found them "living chiefly on gum (acacia), goats, milk etc.", and reported that they stated that "in former years they had been able ... to live fairly comfortably but owing to the smallness of wages and rations now obtainable...high prices charged by the traders ... and loss of most of their stock as a result of the war, they were in distress."

The petition was addressed by thirty Bondelswarts leaders to Hofmeyr. "Wij ... geven met de meest verschuldigde eerbied to keenen: dat wij uwe Excellentie van harte dankzeggen dat U ons een Kommissaris gegeven heert, tot wie wij kunnen gaan om al onze belangen to vertegenwooridgen." (We ... address you with the most due reverence: we thank Your Excellency wholeheartedly that You have given us a Commissioner, to whom we can go to represent all our interests).

In relation to the Dog Tax the petition stated "dat wij eerbiediglik bidden om tog indien mogentlik de hondenbelasting te verminderen dare de bestaande belasting voor ons zeer hoog is en moeijelik om te betalen" (that we reverently pray if it is possible that we may reduce the Dog Tax as the existing tax for us is very high and difficult to pay).

Sergeant van Niekerk was sent to Haib in the Bondelswarts Reserve to arrest Morris.

On 13 May Hofmeyr sent the head of the police, Major van Coller, with a strong force to Kalkfontein South (now Karasburg), a small station on the main railway line from South Africa to Windhoek which skirted the Reserve. Van Coller sent the Bondelswarts leader Jacobus Christian a message through Johan Noothout (the superintendent of the Reserve), asking him to meet him to hear an important message from Hofmeyr. Between 22 and 25 May the Bondelswarts stole additional firearms and supplies from local white farmers, although none of the farmers were hurt.

Although a civilian without military experience, Hofmeyr promoted himself to military rank and took personal command of the armed forces. To outrank the highest-ranking officer in South West Africa, a Lieutenant Colonel, Hofmeyr "temporarily" assumed the rank of Colonel.

The Windhoek Advertiser poked fun at the self-appointed commander-in-chief: "it was possible", the paper held, "that Hofmeyr possessed the military qualities of a Napoleon, but he had reached middle-age without giving proof of his capacities in that direction". The Bondelswarts suffered losses but the Administration's troops advanced cautiously. but by the time of Hofmeyr's report the action was no longer described as a "punitive expedition" and the description had been changed, presumably for public consumption, to refer to the "Bondelswarts Rising".

By the time of the later South African Commission of Enquiry the description of the affair had been amended again to refer to the "Rebellion of the Bondelzwarts".

On 25 July 1922 Colonel Wedgwood of the British Labour party raised the Bondelswarts affair in the House of Commons. Colonel Wedgwood of the British Labour party raised question in the British House of Commons about the use of aeroplanes. Winston Churchill dismissed the enquiry, saying "I hope we shall find something better to do ... than attach our dominions."

Governor General's visit (August 1922)

The Governor General of the Union of South Africa, Prince Arthur of Connaught, visited South West Africa in August 1922.

The Administration, anxious to create a good impression, had arranged for the Prince to be greeted by the headmen of the territory's various communities. The Administration clearly had little trust in the Native chiefs.

The American Consulate General reported that it was apparent that there was considerable dissatisfaction among the original German population.

League of Nations Assembly reacts to the Bondelswarts punitive expedition (September 1922) When the Assembly of the League of Nations opened in Geneva in September 1922, Dantes Bellegarde of Haiti, one of the very few black delegates in the Assembly, denounced South Africa, saying that the Bondelswarts had been harassed by the government but had not rebelled; nevertheless the administration had sent "all the material of modern warfare – machine-guns, artillery and aeroplanes" against them.

The majority, Senator AW Roberts and Dr CT Loram, who had deep roots in the Cape's tradition of tolerance, expressed views critical of Hofmeyr and the Administration, but General Lemmer, a comrade of Botha and Smuts in the Anglo-Boer war and since then a faithful follower of theirs in politics

Lewis comments that from a review of the draft reports it is clear that the majority were initially much more critical of Hofmeyr's role and of his Native Administration generally.

In Britain, an article in the New Statesman in May 1923 strongly criticised the report saying it was "one of the most unsatisfactory documents ever published on a punitive expedition", that it had not proved that the Bondelswarts had actually rebelled, pointing out that until the Government military operations began there had been "neither the pillage, arson nor murder; the Bondels did not touch a single hair of the head of a single white man".

The SA Commission Report majority said that "in the interests of the country it is to be regretted that steps were not taken to formulate a satisfactory Native policy and settle the Natives before the country was opened to European occupation."

Hofmeyr said that after Major van Coller, Fleck and Noothout had received an armed escort when visiting the Bondelswarts, he would not have gone to the Bondelswarts and suffered similar humiliation. "In the face of this action the Commission has the temerity to suggest that I personally should have gone to Haib to see Christian". In this regard Lewis mentions Cecil Rhodes meeting the Ndebele leaders in the Matopos in 1896 in the Second Matabele War and Smuts and General Louis Botha braving a hostile crowd to talk to strike leaders in 1913. but Hofmeyr demurred.

Smuts wrote to Hofmeyr on 20 April 1923 stating that "you have told me that you do not feel at liberty to accept the honour of KCMG for which I intended to submit your name to the King. You appear to feel that your action would be misunderstood.... I have been willing to submit your name as your great public services fully entitle you to the honour, and also as a mark of the appreciation in which I hold these services at a time when you are subjected to a certain measure of press criticism. Public recognition would range the government behind you and be a proof that you do not stand alone."

Hofmeyr continued to struggle with Native policy. He was unable to be complimentary towards the Herero, despite acknowledging their harsh treatment by the Germans. Hofmeyr states that the Herero "are a proud and intelligent race and at the time of the arrival of the Germans were powerful and wealthy, possessed of the best lands and enormous herds of stock. Their last war in 1908 left them landless paupers. To prevent recovery the authorities forbade them acquiring stock and so to maintain a livelihood they were forced to work".

Smuts writes that "I have in no way abated my belief in the Mandate system, and any proposal for the special treatment of the White population is in no sense meant to weaken the beneficent functions entrusted to the League in respect of the Native populations of Mandated territories. I still look upon the Mandate system as a great step in advance so far as backward Native peoples are concerned... but the Mandates Commission will agree with me that the administration of the Whites is something quite different and can safely be left to the Mandatory power...the majority of the White population are... accustomed to our free system of self-government. For them it would be impossible to apply any other form of government than the free democratic regime to which they have been accustomed in the Union...to extend our institutions ... to the exclusion of the comparatively large German minority would be in every way undesirable..." Colonel Creswell, (Leader of the South African Labour Party, and later part of the coalition government with Hertzog, pointed out that Smuts' "attitude in dealing with the disturbances was "you must obey our will". There should have been more humane statesmanship."

"The evidence of several of my officials was not supplied to them for revision...the evidence... especially of the Hottentots was not tested by cross-examination ... I was never informed of the tenor of the evidence thus taken or afforded an opportunity of controverting or answering same. I was virtually tried and condemned in my absence. What a travesty of the essential principles of justice, to say nothing of the oft-flaunted principles of British justice."

The Mandates Commission Report concluded that "the primary cause of the rising was mutual distrust, which existed between the whites and Blacks, and which was responsible for previous risings in South West Africa, where even the educated classes regarded the Natives as existing chiefly for the purpose of labour for the whites."

Hofmeyr was condemned for personally conducting military operations as a civil servant and representative of the Mandatory power since it "excludes in the eyes of the natives the possibility of a supreme appeal to the highest authority, but also, as a consequence the Administrator is deprived of his capacity as an impartial critic and judge of the conduct of operations."

Ward said that on reading the SA Commission Report he found himself "in full accord with the findings arrived at by General Lemmer".

The Mandates Commission was sympathetic in relation to Hofmeyr's position on the Reserves. "The Commission desires first of all to express once again its great appreciation of the opportunity of hearing the views of the Administrator for South West Africa. His authoritative statements have been of the greatest assistance in throwing light on the various administrative questions which arise in a territory where the co-existence of a Native population and large domiciled European community creates conditions and raises problems which are found in no other African territory under Mandate. These statements have also drawn attention to the fact that, under the previous administration, vast agricultural lands were granted to European colonists whose rights and titles it would be difficult not to recognise."

Hofmeyr continued. "I hold that the existence and continuance of the League are absolutely essential if we are to reach the goal where disputes between nations will eventually be settled by international courts of arbitration ... instead of by the barbaric method of the arbitrament of the sword."

General election in South Africa (June 1924) Just as the wheel of fortune seemed to be turning in Hofmeyr's favour by the relatively warm reception he received at the Mandates Commission in Geneva, in the South African general election of June 1924 J.B.M. Hertzog's Nationalists, together with Colonel Creswell's Labour Party, defeated Smuts' South African Party.

Hertzog replaced Smuts as prime minister and Hofmeyr immediately recognised that Hertzog may want to replace him as Administrator. Hofmeyr wrote to Smuts that when Hofmeyr was back in Pretoria "ons die wenslikheid bespreek of ik my tyd sal uitdien in SWA al dan niet" (we can discuss the desirability of whether I will serve out my time in South West Africa or not).

Hofmeyr felt he was among like-minded folk and was sufficiently at ease to describe the Natives as follows: "The Natives, who differ vastly in mentality, are in varying backward stages of civilisation, and the mere mention of the number of different tribes will indicate what a difficult Native and Coloured problem we have side by side with a complex question of whites".

Hofmeyr lamented the continuing divisions between the British and the Germans. "The two sections of the [white] population hold diametrically opposed views as to the future destiny of the Territory and they cordially distrust each other... every German who has tried to co-operate with us... is promptly boycotted by his fellow Germans... and complains bitterly in private of their unenviable position." Hofmeyr's solution was to increase the non-German Europeans: "... I have tried [to apply] a counter-weight by the settlement as fast as possible of Union people on the land". Like the Bondelswarts in 1922, the Rehobothers wanted independence from the Administration. Nevertheless, the Rehoboth Council went ahead and signed the treaty with Hofmeyr on 17 August 1923.

According to Hofmeyr, "argument and persuasion had no effect, and it was only after they realised that they would be forcibly expelled that they left". Hofmeyr tried to exert pressure on Hertzog to extend his appointment. On 30 November 1925 Hertzog's office wrote to JC Minnaar of Stampriet, Gibeon, in South West Africa, saying that Minnaar's letter and other petitioners asking for Hofmeyr's tenure as Administrator to be extended has received "serious attention" from the Prime Minister. The letter stated that although Hertzog and the South African Government did not underestimate the skill of Hofmeyr as Administrator, nonetheless they wanted to appoint a new Administrator "en sodoende sou die misverstand en oneenigheid van die verlede nie strek tot die nuwe regime nie" (and thus the misunderstanding and disagreement of the past would not extend to the new regime).

The issue became public. In November 1925 the Rand Daily Mail reported that "in the course of a short interview with Mr Oswald Pirow, who ... took a prominent part in the drafting of the new South-West Constitution, Mr Pirow said "I can only describe Mr Hofmeyr's claim that it is the wish of the majority of the inhabitants that he should remain as Administrator as an unparalleled exaggeration. I am prepared to state that not one per cent of the population desire to retain him. If the Government want to make the new constitution unworkable from the start, then the right way to do so will be to re-appoint Mr Hofmeyr." Nonetheless, on 19 December 1925 Hofmeyr wrote to Hertzog, saying that he received the notice that on 31 March 1926 he must resign as Administrator "met diepe teleurstelling" (with great disappointment). Hofmeyr's last day in office was 31 March 1926.

In the same month Hofmeyr was appointed by Lord Athlone, then High Commissioner for South Africa, to serve on the commission to represent the government of the Union of South Africa in negotiations with Portugal with regard to negotiating the utilisation of the waters of the Cunene River for hydraulic power and irrigation following a final agreement being arrived at for the delimitation of the boundary between Angola and South West Africa.

Later political thought

Reconciliation of the white races In July 1926 Hofmeyr continued to push his earlier "reconciliation" views and issued public appeals for Hertzog and Smuts to merge their parties.

Hofmeyr first describes the two extremes. "The two most widely divergent schools of thought on this question... are those who go all out for ultimate perfect equality with the white man and those who wish to keep the Native down by denying him all opportunity for developing to a higher status."

In 1924 Riversdale had elected Mr AL Badenhorst, who represented Hertzog's Nationalist Party. The charge of hypocrisy rang true for many, and Hofmeyr suffered the same treatment.

Hofmeyr took great exception to Badenhorst's criticism. In March 1929, three months before the general election, Hofmeyr instituted legal action against Badenhorst, claiming £3,000 for damages for loss of good reputation. (Mr Hofmeyr will come and tell you all kinds of lies. This Mr. Hofmeyr is the man who had the Coloured people shot dead in South West Africa, over a small thing like a Dog Tax. When the poor people could not pay their taxes, then the same Mr. Hofmeyr had them shot dead. Apparently, it was about 50 men. What the Government couldn't understand was that there wasn't even one who had been wounded, and when the women and children of the people fled into the ridges or ravines, then Mr. Hofmeyr sent two warplanes to shoot or pulverise them).

On a different occasion Badenhorst had said "die 53 bruinmense het almal kopskote gekry, en die wat nie dood was nie het by verder gegeesel. En toe het hy twee lugskepe laat kom en laat boms afgooi op die vrouwens en kinders" ("The 53 coloured people all received headshots, and those who were not dead were further beaten. And then he sent two warplanes to drop bombs on the women and children") Badenhorst's concern for the Coloured people of South West Africa was opportunistic at best.

The years of litigation

Hofmeyr v Badenhorst After the election, Hofmeyr persisted with his claim against Badenhorst.

Hofmeyr set out his reasons for doing so in his affidavit supporting his claim. "I found to my horror that these alleged statements conveyed the impression that I had been guilty of wilful and coldblooded murder"

A farm had been granted to Lange by the German Government but Lange's right to the farm had subsequently been removed by the German Government as Lange had not fulfilled the conditions of the grant.

Hofmeyr's view in 1924 was that Lange had no valid claim against the Administration.

Lange petitioned the court to sue Hofmeyr in forma pauperis (which would have enabled Lange to bring an action without paying the usual fees).

Hofmeyr engaged Albert Centlivres KC (later Chief Justice of South Africa from 1950 to 1957) and Newton Ogilvie Thompson (later Chief Justice of South Africa from 1971 to 1974) as counsel. The petition was dismissed.

Hofmeyr was unable to recover his costs from Lange as Lange did not have sufficient funds.

Recovery of costs Given that the claim against Hofmeyr arose in his capacity as Administrator, Hofmeyr wrote to the South African prime minister Hertzog in May 1931 asking that the South African government pay the costs of defending the action that were not paid by Mr Lange.

Hertzog declined to pay Hofmeyr's costs. Smuts was supportive of Hofmeyr's claims. In July 1931 Smuts wrote to Hofmeyr: "I have heard with astonishment that the Government have refused to refund the costs to which you have been put by the Lange case... I fail to understand why you should be made to suffer for what you have said or done in your capacity as Administrator and in the course of your duties."

Smuts provided an affidavit in support of Hofmeyr's claims. In August 1931 Smuts said that "during my tenure ... as Prime Minister... I had occasion to instruct [Hofmeyr] ... to proceed to Geneva and there attend the sittings of the [Mandates Commission]... in his official capacity as Administrator of South West Africa... [Hofmeyr] could not have refused to give information on petitions ... without causing embarrassment to the Union Government as Mandatory..."

Hofmeyr obtained a legal opinion from Albert Centlivres in September 1931, which he sent to Hertzog. Centlivres wrote that "In making the statements before the [Mandates Commission] ...[Hofmeyr] was acting as the agent of the Union Government.... [Hofmeyr] can recover the costs against the government".

Notwithstanding this, the South African government continued to refuse to reimburse Hofmeyr for his costs.

Renewed action by Lange But the saga was not over. In February 1932 Hofmeyr received a statement of claim in which Lange claimed £5,000 for damages sustained by reason of false and defamatory statements made by Hofmeyr at the Mandates Commission in July 1924.

Lange now alleged that in February 1922 Hofmeyr had personally informed Lange that he was willing to restore Lange's farm to him on condition that Lange waived all claims against the government, which condition Lange refused to accept.

On 6 March 1932 Hofmeyr obtained an order staying this new action until Lange had paid Hofmeyr's costs in respect of the first action. Such costs were never paid by Lange, and so the matter was finally over.

Last years In 1930, 1931 and 1932 Hofmeyr was invited by the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) to preside as "Speaker" at the annual Student Parliament.

Travel In 1935 Hofmeyr undertook a world tour with his wife and eldest son, Harold, first sailing to London and then on to Canada in Canadian Pacific's "Duchess of Richmond". They crossed the continent to San Francisco, and then sailed via Honolulu to Melbourne. Harold, a doctor specialising in tropical diseases, was representing the Cape Province at the British Medical Association's conference in Melbourne. Hofmeyr was still positive about the British Commonwealth, saying that "I feel that the conference will strengthen the bonds of the Commonwealth, which mean so much to South Africa and the other Dominions." Hofmeyr summarised the remainder of their world tour: "I hope to visit New Zealand, and see something of their Maori community. Batavia, Singapore and Penange are on our itinerary... Colombo, Bombay and Calcutta are next, and finally, by way of the Seychelles and Mombasa, we return to Cape Town."

Gysbert Reitz Hofmeyr acquired Welgemeend on 14 May 1914 for £4,250 from his father's cousin, Tieleman Johannes Roos Hofmeyr. Tieleman was the brother of Onze Jan Hofmeyr, who had lived at Welgemeend for most of his life. Onze Jan moved from Welgemeend to Avondrust, a house on Stephen Street which he had built for him in 1902, and he lived there until his death in London in 1909. Avondrust was demolished by the Department of Education in 1950. In this respect Hofmeyr had been a good colonial administrator. As far as the British were concerned, an unwritten rule of empire was that colonies should be fiscally self-sufficient.

Ruth First viewed it differently. For her, in the early days of the Mandate, South Africa looked upon her ward South West Africa as an expensive but strategically necessary stepchild.

As the first Administrator under the Mandate, Hofmeyr's role was to work out what this new standard of civilisation meant in practice. Hofmeyr played a critical role in setting the template for the administration of South West Africa under the Mandate. Did Hofmeyr comply with the terms of the Mandate and “promote to the utmost the material and moral well-being and social progress of the inhabitants of the territory"?

The Mandates Commission formally deplored the absence of "social progress" of Blacks in the territory.

British attitudes of the time What Hofmeyr implemented in South West Africa was not only what Smuts required and desired but was in many respects fully in line with what the British expected. This is evident from a speech given in Windhoek in 1919 by Viscount Buxton, the Governor General of South Africa appointed by Britain.

Buxton approved the rapid introduction of white settlers from South Africa, and was pleased that the non-German element (4,000 British subjects, nearly all Dutch-speaking Africanders) was in 1919 already about half as large as the German community, and that before long there would certainly be a considerable influx from the Union.

Smuts insisted that equal rights for Indians in South Africa would lead to equal rights for Natives and that would mean the end of South Africa. "We are up against a stone wall, and we cannot get over it".

Merriman then qualifies this enlightened thinking: "I do not like the Natives at all and I wish that we had no Black man in South Africa. But there they are, our lot is cast with them by an overruling providence and the only question in show to shape our course so as to maintain the supremacy of our race and at the same time do our duty".

Hendrik Witbooi went on: "Peace which comes from the stopping of the ammunition supply is no true peace, for true peace comes from the heart".

In 1892 Hendrik Witbooi wrote to an English magistrate in Walvis Bay (then under British control): "The German ... makes no requests according to truth and justice and asks no permission of a chief. He introduces laws into the land which are entirely impossible, untenable, unbelievable, unbearable, unmerciful and unfeeling.... He personally punishes our people at Windhoek and has already beaten people to death for debt... he flogs people in a shameful and cruel manner. We stupid and unintelligent people, for so he thinks us to be, we have never yet punished a human being in such a cruel and improper way for he stretches people on their backs and flogs them on the stomach and even between the legs, be they male or female, so your Honour can understand that no one can survive such a punishment". The Europeans did not impose similar restrictions on themselves.

In 1924, when Chief Kutako was complaining about the allocation of desert land at Epukiro as the new Reserve for the Herero, he asked an official "how is it that when [the Herero] inhabited South West Africa, and the [Rehobothers] were wanting land and came to Chief Samuel Maherero, he gave them a country to live in which had open water. Now you want to drive us to places where there is no water. When the [Rehobothers] came they were only a handful, but because they had a land given them by us they are becoming a big people. Why do you not do for us what Chief Samuel Maharero did for them?"

These examples suggest that the descriptions of the Natives as under-developed, uncivilised or barbaric are far from the truth.

Bondelswarts affair There can be little doubt that the Bondelswarts affair and the manner of its suppression, for which Hofmeyr was primarily responsible, cast a long shadow over the international reputation of South Africa.

Certainly, it cast a long shadow over the Bondelswarts. Lewis, writing in 1977, sums it up as follows: "the Bondelswarts tribe was shattered by the revolt. Defeated and impoverished, their loss of pride led to increased demoralisation and abuse of alcohol, so that the Bondelswarts people today are a mere scattered semblance of their former greatness".

Lewis' assessment of Hofmeyr's role in the affair is that Hofmeyr was well-meaning, sincere and paternalistic in his attitude to the Blacks. After extended battles with the Portuguese in which some 5,000 Natives were killed, Mandume and some of his people fled south into South West Africa. Mandume refused the South Africans' demand to surrender, and combined South African and Portuguese forces marched on Mandume and Mandume was killed in action together with 100 of his people.

In March 1922 Smuts declared martial law. He announced that the police were under attack all over the Rand and that the fighting was going badly for them and then personally assumed command (as Hofmeyr did a few months later in the Bondelswarts punitive expedition).

For Colonel Callwell, when European troops engaged in wars against the "uncivilised" and "savage" populations of the world, as opposed to civilised armies, they needed a different set of rules.

In the Iraqi Revolt in the 1920s the British embraced air power as an economical means of colonial policing. Bombing played an important part in the suppression of the revolt with the RAF dropping 100 tonnes of bombs.

A description by Caroline Elkins of pilot Arthur "Bomber" Harris in 1923 over the Mesopotamian desert (now Iraq) one evening

Bomber Harris was head of the RAF Bomber Command in the Second World War. While Churchill had shown no mercy in using aerial destruction on subjects in the Empire, he fretted endlessly over unleashing similar tactics on European civilians.

The bombing offensive continued, as Britain's imperial tested air forces reduced Dresden and other German cities to rubble.

Hofmeyr's actions need to be considered in this full historical context where the aerial bombing of Natives by European powers was the norm for the 1920s.

Mandate Commission inconsistency As a colonial representative rather than a direct representative of one of the great powers, the Mandates Commission was rather less lenient in its attitude towards Hofmeyr's actions. Hofmeyr would have had justification for feeling that the Mandates Commission had been harsh on him if one considers the Mandates Commission's response to the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925–27.

Syria was at that time administered under a League of Nations Mandate by France. There was a general uprising in Syria aimed at getting rid of French rule. The French bombarded civilians in Damascus, an undefended and historic city.

The bombardment happened on 19 October 1925, the very day the Mandates Commission convened in Geneva for their seventh session. Ever more harrowing accounts appeared in the London Times, but the Mandates Commission did nothing – taking the view that their role was to review not direct policy.

The bombardment became a cause celebre, making headlines and drawing protests across the world. French behaviour had upended civilizational assumptions, for it was the French who acted barbarically.

The British Foreign Secretary, Austen Chamberlain, thought that the whole sorry mess needed to be contained as quickly as possible, and that the British needed to help the French do that. The British representative on the Mandates Commission Frederick Lugard failed to hold the French to account. Discussions of petitions alleging widespread atrocities – of bombardment of undefended villages, use of human shields, rape as a weapon of war, massive looting – were pushed off to a later session, a decision that gave the French Foreign Ministry time to instruct officials in Syria to produce a report rebutting every charge – rebutting but not investigating them.

Once that report had been received, the Mandates Commission happily confirmed that they now knew that "no atrocities had been committed".

Most strikingly, the Mandates Commission agreed that aerial bombing of civilians, the very method they had condemned in the Bondelswarts case, was allowable when repressing a genuine rebellion.

The inconsistency of the Mandates Commission approach is clear. Was it inspired because the officials in charge in Syria were French and not "colonials"?

Conclusions Like Hofmeyr, most of Hofmeyr's contemporaries also failed to understand the implications of the "new spirit" of the times as embodied in the League of Nations Covenant. When advocating in 1918 the new concept of a united world body, Smuts excluded the application of the scheme to Africa which he said is "inhabited by barbarians who not only cannot possibly govern themselves, but to whom it would be impracticable to apply any ideas of political self-determination in the European sense". Hofmeyr shared this view.

In Wellington's view, Hofmeyr's Administration was certainly better than the Germans in South West Africa and the British in Rhodesia. Wellington said that "one may regard South West Africa under the Germans and Rhodesia under Rhodes as amongst the last manifestations of rampant imperialism, the one inspired by Kaiser Wilhelm II, determined to secure its "place in the sun", the other by Cecil Rhodes determined at any cost to bring about the "furtherance of the British Empire, and the bringing of the whole civilised world under British rule".

For Wellington, Hofmeyr failed to "promote to the utmost the material and moral well-being and social progress of the inhabitants of the territory" as required under the Mandate. Wellington wrote that "one feels that positive policies of white supremacy or baasskap consort ill with the new voluntary acceptance of responsibility for the Black man's development. One wonders to what extent the disastrous first steps in the South West Africa Administration may be attributable to this fixed opinion about the worth and potential capacity of the indigenous African, and, perhaps, to a disappointment and resentment with regard to the League's non-annexation policy.

In his Report of 1922 Hofmeyr complains that the utmost difficulty was experienced in making the Herero realise that "vested interests" (of German and Union settlers) made it utterly impossible "at this late stage" to consider their request to restore their land. From this the Hofmeyr Administration's policy was crystal clear. So far as land was concerned the best must be kept for the whites; for the Natives the worst was good enough.

The adoption of a land policy which would be just to the Natives was surely of the utmost importance for the fulfilment of the "sacred trust", and legally required under the Mandate. Wellington's assessment is that failure in this at the very beginning was not merely a blunder, it was moral turpitude.

Ultimately, rather than focussing on Hofmeyr's use of warplanes and excessive force in inflicting a severe and lasting lesson on the Bondelswarts, history may judge Hofmeyr more harshly for the system that he introduced in South West Africa: his land policy, his promotion of white settlers at the expense of the Natives, his introduction of "ugly" laws aimed at reducing the Natives to a compliant labour force for the whites, and for the pass laws that restricted the movement and freedoms of the Natives.