Closer Union: A Letter on South African Union and the Principles of Government

By Olive Schreiner

This early work by Olive Schreiner was originally published in 1909 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Closer Union: A Letter on South African Union and the Principles of Government' is a polemical work in which the author argues for greater rights for blacks and women in South Africa. Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner was born on 24th March 1855 at the Wesleyan Missionary Society station at Wittebergen in the Eastern Cape, near Herschel in South Africa. In 1880, Olive set sail for the United Kingdom with the goal of taking a position as a trainee nurse at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh in Scotland. Unfortunately ill-health prevented her from studying and she was forced to concede that writing would and could be her only work in life. In 1883, she produced her first published work The Story of an African Farm which she penned under the pseudonym Ralph Iron. This novel details the lives of three characters, first as children and then as adults, and caused significant controversy over its frank portrayal of freethought, feminism, premarital sex, and transvestitism. She became increasingly involved with the politics of the South Africa, leading her to make influential acquaintances such as Cecil John Rhodes, with whom she eventually became disillusioned and wrote a scathing allegory in his honour.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Press
• Release date: Dec 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781473397194

Olive Schreiner

Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) was a South African political activist and writer. Born to a family of Wesleyan missionaries, Schreiner was educated by her mother. Forced to move frequently due to her father’s inability to maintain a job, Schreiner became familiar with the landscape of South Africa and the cultural and political tensions holding together its diverse population. In 1881, she travelled to England in order to pursue her dream of becoming a medical professional, but her chronic asthma and limited finances prevented her from completing her training. In 1883, she published her debut novel, The Story of an African Farm, under a pseudonym, launching a career as one of South Africa’s leading writers. Throughout her life, she advocated for political equality for South Africa’s marginalized groups, including Afrikaners, indigenous Africans, Jews, and Indians. Combining a deep understanding of Christian morality with an active interest in socialism and the women’s suffrage movement, Schreiner is recognized as a pioneering feminist and political activist who wrote unflinchingly on such subjects as the Boer War, British imperialism, and intersectionality.

Book preview

Closer Union: A Letter on the South African Union and the Principles of Government

by

Olive Schreiner

Author of The Story of a South African Farm Trooper Peter Halkett etc.

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Closer Union: A Letter on the South African Union and the Principles of Government

Olive Schreiner

Publisher’s Note

A Letter by Olive Schreiner

Federation and Small Nations

Local Parliaments v. Central

The Basis of Representation

Coloured Peoples’ Representation

The Capital

COST

HASTE

SIZE

NATIVE QUESTION

New Books

In Preparation

Olive Schreiner

Olive Schreiner was born on Wittebergen Reserve, Cape Colony (present-day Lesotho) in 1855. After finishing school, she found work as a governess and a schoolteacher, and during her free time began to work on a novel about her experiences in South Africa. When Schreiner had saved enough money, she travelled to Britain, hoping to become a doctor. She lived in London where she began attending lectures at the Medical School, as well as attending socialist meetings. Schreiner met the publisher George Meredith, who in 1883 published her best-known novel, Story of an African Farm. A commercial and critical success, it is now seen as a defining work of early feminism – as is her later work, Women and Labour (1911).

Over the rest of her life, Schreiner made the acquaintance of a number of figures in London society, including future Prime Minister William Gladstone. In 1889, she returned to South Africa to be with her family. Her brother, William Schreiner, later became prime minister of Cape Colony. Over the next few years she published two collections of short stories, Dreams (1891) and Dream Life and Real Life (1893). She also became heavily involved in politics, and was a fierce opponent of racism and imperialism. Her 1897 work Trooper Peter Halkett of Mashonaland (1897) was a strong attack on British rule in South Africa.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Schreiner moved back to Britain. Over the next four years she was active in the peace movement and worked closely with organizations such as the Union of Democratic Control and the Non-Conscription Fellowship. She returned to South Africa in of August 1920, and dying following a heart attack later that year.

Publisher’s Note

THE following letter was written by Mrs. Cronwright Schreiner (Olive Schreiner) in October, 1908, in reply to twelve questions submitted to her by the Editor of the Transvaal Leader, and it appeared in that journal on December 22.

On February 9, 1909, the National Convention for the Union of the four South African Colonies, after four months’ deliberation at Durban and Cape Town, published a draft of the suggested Constitution (printed here in The Times of February 10), on which the several Parliaments of the South African States will deliberate on March 30. In May the Convention reassembles, and in June it submits its final draft to the Parliaments, after which a Committee of Delegates proceeds to England to facilitate the passing of the Act.

The opinion of a South African authority of such high repute as Olive Schreiner cannot fail to be of interest at this time, and