British Commonwealth of Nations: South African Riot

At Bloemhof in the Transvaal onetime premier of the Union of South Africa, General Jan Christian Smuts, arose to make a political speech.

Immediately there broke out a hullabaloo. Fighting with chairs, clubs, bottles, 300 Nationlist opponents of General Smuts drove his supporters to the wall and captured the platform, where they sang and danced to the sound of the tearing of British flags used to decorate the hall. Many bleeding faces bore evidence of the affray.

At a banquet in the evening General Smuts said: “In the whole course of my life I have never seen anything so shocking. The country is rapidly becoming a little Russia. But we won’t submit to it.”