Grondtoekenning en landlike vestiging in die Oranjerivierkolonie/Oranje-Vrystaat, 1900-1912

Abstract

This article refutes the misconception that Lord Alfred Milner's land settlement scheme in the Orange River Colony was a financial and agricultural disaster. The British settlers probably received more privileges, financially and materially, than did the Afrikaner farmers who were ruined by the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899 - 1902). It should be conceded, however, that Milner's imperialistic motive to increase the British element by way of the land settlement scheme to prevent the rural areas from remaining solely in Afrikaner hands, did not materialize to the extent envisaged by him. By 1912 the settlers numbered 546, in comparison with the approximately 40 000 Afrikaner farmers in the districts concerned.