the Gelderland, to transport him to Europe. His voyage and his subsequent tour through Europe received mass publicity, and his presence drew crowds wherever he went.[39]
In reality, the crowds and the publicity only served to mask Kruger’s diplomatic failure. Kruger had hoped to appeal to Germany for assistance, but Kaiser Wilhelm II refused to receive him. Unfortunately for Kruger, the Germans and the British had held secret talks during the summer of 1898. The outcome of these negotiations was that they would divide the Portuguese possessions in Africa between them, as it was thought that the Portuguese state was nearing bankruptcy. As part of their cordial relationship, they undertook not to allow the South African issue to cause any further divisions between them.[40] Instead of heading for Berlin, Kruger was forced to travel to the Netherlands where, in December 1900, he stopped in Utrecht on his way to The Hague. Malan went to the station to see him. ‘There was such an incredibly large and excited mass of people that I was nearly flattened by the Dutch,’ he wrote to his parents. ‘Shouts of “Long live Kruger, Long live the Boers” were so incessant that the speeches were inaudible, even to the speakers.’[41]
The public’s enthusiasm filled Malan with cynicism. After only two months in the Netherlands, he had observed enough to write to his parents that ‘Nothing is to be expected from the European powers. Here, self-interest reigns supreme. Besides, they mistrust each other too much to work together. We will now have to do ourselves what we expect others to do for us.’[42] In his diary he noted: ‘The salvation of South Africa lies in and has to come from South Africa.’[43]
Despite Malan’s preoccupation with politics, he had to concentrate on his reason for being in the Netherlands in the first place: his studies. He was already counting the years and months until he could return to South Africa – by December 1900 he calculated that he had two years and nine months to go.[44] Unbeknown to him at the time, his stay was to be longer.
The first hurdle was that the University of Utrecht did not recognise his previous qualifications, so Malan busied himself with preparations for the exams that he had to retake. Most of the work was a repetition of what he had done before, but he resigned himself to it. At least it gave him time to consider his future plans. He was still uncertain as to whether or not he would undertake doctoral studies.[45] This raises the question of why he went to the Netherlands in the first place, and what he would have done if he had not decided to pursue doctoral studies. Unfortunately, this is a question that the surviving documents leave unanswered, but one may speculate that he left for Europe precisely because, even after completing his theological studies, his nagging feelings of inferiority left him convinced that he was not adequately prepared to lead a congregation.
Nevertheless, at this stage, he decided to prepare for the doctoral admission exams in case he decided to pursue a doctorate after all. In the meantime, he wanted to make full use of the opportunity to learn as many new things as possible that could be of value to South Africa. He decided that he did not care much for sightseeing – unless it provided him with an opportunity to learn something. He was initially struck by the extensive charity work undertaken in the Netherlands – South Africa, for one, would certainly need similar charitable institutions after the war, as there would surely be much poverty and deprivation in its wake. Malan resolved to make a special study of these institutions during one of his longer holidays.[46] What he would have found was a society that was changing its approach to poverty alleviation.
The last quarter of the nineteenth century, and also the first decade of the twentieth, was a time of extensive socio-economic change in the Netherlands. The country’s economy began to industrialise, moving away from trade capitalism to a broader, modern capitalism. The growth of cities and the proliferation of factories served to make the poor more visible than ever before. This resulted in new perceptions regarding poverty. Instead of treating it as something to be left to the charities, poverty became a broader social issue that needed to be addressed through government policies and legislation. Education was regarded as a key solution to the problem, as the Netherlands was a country where a modernising democracy was giving the working class an ever-growing political voice. At the same time, the growing power of the middle class meant that society was dominated by bourgeois values, and education was seen as an important means of transmitting these values to the masses.[47] This bears striking similarities to both Malan’s, and the general Afrikaner nationalist, approach to the poor white problem in South Africa, which was to occupy an important place on the South African social and political agenda for the first half of the twentieth century.
As part of his ‘project’ Malan visited the largest orphanage in the Netherlands, as well as a socialist colony, which he thought was quite novel. ‘The latter is an attempt to improve society by abolishing all private property. Everyone in the colony works for the common purse, from which each then receives what he needs,’ he explained in a letter to Nettie.[48]
This experiment in socialism did not inspire Malan – although it left him well informed. In later years, he would publish a lecture on socialism which demonstrated that he had a firm grasp of Karl Marx’s theories.[49] The Dutch railway strike of 1903 filled him with revulsion, not solidarity with the plight of the working classes:
The railway employees suddenly got it in their minds to stop working. The hotbed was in Amsterdam. For a few days, not a single train could reach Amsterdam. The government concentrated troops from other areas in Amsterdam in order to be prepared for all eventualities, but the railway employees flatly refused to serve any train containing a soldier. By cutting off all access, the price of articles escalated – it was as if the city was under siege. It could not go on any longer and – the workers got their way. As if they have the power in their hands! Thus, slowly the workers are becoming the ruling class in all European countries. Over the past few years, the socialists in Germany have increased threefold. If the Kaiser is not careful, he will get it on the head! That in itself would not be bad, only, I would not like to see it happen before he helps England to its downfall. There is indeed every chance of that happening. That it will be the clash of the first twenty years is unmistakeable.[50]
These words reveal so many aspects of the Afrikaner nationalist politician that was to come. He had a bourgeois mistrust of the mobilisation of the working class, supported Britain’s enemies – not because they merited support but because they would help to punish Britain – and, moreover, he had a keen insight into the intricacies of power politics and their inevitable outcome.
Malan gradually became accustomed to his new world. After about seven months in the Netherlands, he could report to Nettie that he was becoming used to the Dutch and their habits, and no longer felt ‘like a fish on dry land’.[51] Yet, as is typical of any foreigner, Malan’s observations were always in relation to his own country, and in his eyes, the Netherlands did not compare favourably, as he wrote to Nettie:
I’ve often wondered how it is possible that such a level country intersected by hundreds of canals, with a gray mist usually hanging over the landscape, ever could have inspired such great poets as the Netherlands have produced. And that too in a country where woman, who so often is the object or inspirer of poetry, does not command that position of power and influence in society she has with us. By the way, you know that it is a fact that nowhere in the world does woman occupy such a high position in the public estimation as among the Africanders. This not only on the ground of my own observation, but on the authority of our great South African historian Theal. So I would advise you not as yet to set on foot or join in a movement for the emancipation of woman.[52]
In contrast to his disdain for the Dutch, Malan’s reverence for his own nation continued to grow, as he romanticised and extolled their virtues: ‘My experience thus far is that, in spite of their civilisation here, of which they are so proud, our poor old oppressed little nation is in most respects far, far superior to any with whom I have yet come into contact.’[53]
In the midst of the Dutch winter, Malan found himself longing for another landscape, far away in the south:
I
