History of Cape Colony From 1870 To 1899 - South African Customs Union

South African Customs Union

There was considerable unrest in Cape Colony in the period from 1878 to 1885 - sparked in part by the attempts of the British Colonial Office to impose a system of confederation on Southern Africa and to disarm all Africans in the Cape. In a short period of time, there was the Anglo-Zulu War, chronic troubles with the Basutos (which prompted the Cape to relinquish control of Basutoland to the imperial authorities) as well as a series of conflicts with the Xhosa which were followed by the First Boer War of 1881 and the Bechuanaland disturbances of 1884.

In spite of these drawbacks, the development of the country continued. The diamond industry was flourishing. A conference was held in London in 1887 for "promoting a closer union between the various parts of the British empire by means of an imperial tariff of customs". At this conference, Hofmeyr proposed a sort of "Zollverein" scheme, in which imperial customs were to be levied independently of the duties payable on all goods entering the empire from abroad. In making the proposition, he stated that his objective was "to promote the union of the empire, and at the same time to obtain revenue for the purposes of general defence". The scheme was found to be impractical at the time. But its wording, as well as the sentiments accompanying it, created a favourable view of Hofmeyr.

In spite of the disastrous failure of political confederation, the members of the Cape parliament set about establishing a South African Customs Union in 1888. A Customs Union Bill was passed and, shortly afterwards, the Orange Free State joined the union. There was the first of many attempts to get the Transvaal to join, but President Kruger, who was pursuing his own policy, hoped to make the South African Republic entirely independent of Cape Colony through the Delagoa Bay railway. The plan to create a customs union that included the Transvaal was also little to the taste of President Kruger's Hollander advisers as they were invested in the plans of the Netherlands Railway Company, who owned the railways of the Transvaal.