T
his book was
completed in draft before, on 15 March 1961, the Prime Minister of the
Union of South Africa announced the impending withdrawal of his country
from the British Commonwealth. It was an event which Ernest
Oppenheimer would have most profoundly deplored; it would have seemed
to him a betrayal of South Africa's vital interests, as well as being a
violation of his own most deeply held beliefs.
The
firms which he controlled were primarily interested in commodities—
gold, diamonds and copper—which depended on a world market: on the
financial side the maintenance of close connexions with the City of
London was one of the fundamental assumptions upon which hopes of
further expansion in the future were based; the operations of the
group were not confined to the Union, but had spread to the Rhodesias,
where, as has already been set out, an ever-widening range of
activities was undertaken. These facts in themselves would have
prevented him from entertaining any narrow nationalistic philosophy;
but, all questions of self-interest apart, the bent of his mind made
such a profession of faith impossible to him. He was a passionate South
African, like his friend and political leader, General Smuts, and, like
him, he was also a passionate adherent of the Commonwealth. He
manifested his faith by deeds—Queen Elizabeth House at Oxford, founded
by Royal Charter in 1955 'to facilitate studies in political, economic,
legal, administrative, social and cultural matters affecting the
peoples of the Commonwealth overseas and specially, but not
exclusively, the peoples of the Colonies, Protectorates and other
territories for which Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom
now bears responsibility', owed its origin (though further sums were
contributed by the United Kingdom Government) to a donation of f
100,000 on his part. This was a donation which reflected a personal
point of view and must be considered as such: it was not impelled by
any self-seeking motive whatsoever.1
Yet
the step has been taken and the whole future of South Africa will be
affected by it. Ernest Oppenheimer's death in 1957 closed one chapter:
this opens another. It had always been the writer's intention to end
this book by attempting to assess what was permanently significant in a
career such as the one described in the preceding pages; it gains
1
This donation was not of course the only one made by Ernest Oppenheimer
in his personal capacity, nor the only one which indicated his interest
in social, political and educational matters. He was a generous
contributor to the Smuts Memorial Fund, the
