The Disintegration of the Gold and Maize Alliance in South Africa in the 1920s

As early as the 1890s certain Transvaal farmers enjoyed an economic marriage of convenience with some of the wealthy gold mine owners despite the fact that most Transvaal burghers saw the mines as a political and economic threat.1 The changing requirements of the Randlords, however, terminated this relationship and the Jameson Raid (1896) and the South African War (1899-1902) widened the breach. Nevertheless, in the early decades of the twentieth century an alliance between farmers and mineowners was struck. This has been called the gold and maize alliance by Stanley Trapido.2 The alliance was informal. It was initially nourished by the Milner administration which realized that such an alliance was necessary in order to keep South Africa British. The alliance did not rest on institutional linkages between, for example, the Chamber of Mines and the South African Agricultural Union. Rather, it seemed to work via a network of persons in Parliament, in the land companies and in a variety of agricultural organizations. The alliance could be seen in operation when support was given for the South African Party and its policies (such as reconciliation between Afrikaner and Englishman) and when preferential contracts were entered into between mine owners and certain farmers or agricultural groupings. The alliance did not join all farmers and mineowners. Only the progressive maize farmers of the western and eastern Transvaal found it comfortable to have close ties with the mines. These ties were cemented at the

Alliance · Ancient history · Archaeology · Geography · Political science · History · Legal Issues in South Africa · South African History and Culture

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