Charles Theodore Te Water
Charles Theodore Te Water was a South African barrister, diplomat and politician who was appointed as President of the Assembly of the League of Nations. Te Water also served as the South African high commissioner to the United Kingdom between 1929 and 1939, where he was an influential voice for the appeasement of Germany. He was known for his pushing of white supremacist and Apartheid policies during his political career.
Diplomat in London and Geneva
Born in Graaff-Reinet, Cape Colony, on 4 February 1887, the son of Dr Thomas Te Water, a medical doctor and politician, Charles Te Water was educated at Bedford School and at Christ's College, Cambridge. Like all Afrikaners, te Water was of Dutch, German and French descent.He became a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1910, and was a member of the Pretoria bar between 1910 and 1929. He represented Pretoria for the National Party in the Union Parliament between 1924 and 1929, and was High Commissioner for the Union of South Africa in London between 1929 and 1939. He was the Union of South Africa's delegate to the League of Nations between 1929 and 1939, and was appointed as President of the Assembly of the League of Nations between 1933 and 1934.
Te Water was an Afrikaner nationalist who saw the League of Nations as a useful way to make the case for greater South African autonomy within the British Empire. South Africa had been granted Dominion status in 1910 as the Union of South Africa, but the British government still had certain powers such as the right to declare war on behalf of the entire British Empire, which had been most dramatically illustrated in 1914 when South Africa together with all of the Dominions was committed to war when Britain declared war on Imperial Germany. Not until 1931 with the Statute of Westminster were the Dominions formally given the power to declare war on their own. As a diplomat, te Water consistently stressed his belief that the Dominions were only bound to Britain on a voluntary basis, being held together by ties of history and sentiment, and fiercely resented any claim by the British government to speak on behalf of South Africa.
Beyond making the case for greater South African autonomy, te Water was keenly interested in the League because of South West Africa, which South Africa administered as a mandate for the League of Nations. Through South Africa actually ruled South West Africa, technically the territory belonged to the League of Nations, which in theory could take it away from South Africa. South Africa's aim was always to annex South West Africa to become the fifth province of South Africa, but to do so required the consent of the German settlers in Southwest Africa as the League's mandate stated that to change the status of Southwest Africa required the consent of its "civilized" people. The German settlers in Southwest Africa believed in the dolchstoßlegend and as such contending that Germany actually won World War One-being defeated by the alleged "stab-in-the-back"-felt it was only a matter of time before South West Africa was returned to Germany. The German settlers wanted South West Africa to remain a League mandate in order to await for the day that they believed that the League would order South West Africa returned to Germany, which in effect blocked South African plans to annex South West Africa. South Africa tried hard to be an ideal member of the League at least in part to improve its chances of annexing South West Africa. Te Water was very active on the League's Mandates Commission, which had the responsibility of monitoring how the mandatory powers were administrating the mandates. In a speech at the Mandates Commission, te Water criticized the entire concept of the mandates, which were supposed to be prepared for independence one day, saying he did not think that Southwest Africa could ever be independent as its white population was too small. Te Water advocated that it would be better if the League would allow South Africa to annex South West Africa as its fifth province to go along with the current four provinces of the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Natal and the Cape province.
Besides for the wish to annex South West Africa, te Water was interested in having South Africa annex the three British protectorates in southern Africa, namely Bechuanaland, Basutoland and the Swaziland Protectorate. All three protectorates were created in the 19th century when African kings signed agreements to turn their kingdoms as into British protectorates as preferable to being annexed to the Boer republics, and South African leaders persistently regarded the three protectorates as rightfully part of South Africa. Te Water constantly raised complaints in London, charging that the three protectorates were under a lax British administration that made them centers of crime and disease, and claimed that it would better if South Africa were to annex the three protectorates. The British were politely rebuffed the demand for South Africa to annex the protectorates, stating Britain had signed agreements with the African monarchs in the 19th century and could not allow change the status of the protectorates without the consent of the African kings under British protection. Though the idea of the League of Nations was the brainchild of the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, the actual design of the League was the work of Lord Cecil and Jan Smuts who devised the structure of the League at the Paris peace conference in 1919. As one of the "fathers" of the League was a South African, the South African media consistently held a keen interested in the League.
One of te Water's first acts as High Commissioner in London was to host a grand ball where the guests of honour were King George V and Queen Mary, who both gave speeches saying that they were glad that the wounds caused by the Boer War had healed and praised South Africa as a successful Dominion in Africa. Te Water's predecessor as High Commissioner, Eric Louw, was a republican Afrikaner nationalist whose relations with the British were stormy to say the least, accounting for his very short term as High Commissioner, and the British welcomed te Water in 1929 as a great improvement over Louw. Even te Water's accent was considered an improvement as unlike Louw who spoken English with a strong Afrikaans accent, te Water's English was spoken with a mixture of an Afrikaans accent tinged with an upper class English accent he had acquired during his time at Cambridge. Te Water represented South Africa at the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva in 1932–34, where his most notable speech was in 1932 calling for South Africa to have a stronger air force "in view of the long distances and semi-barbarous people which his government had to control". On 22 June 1933, he formally opened the South Africa House as the new home of the high commission where the guests of honour were again the King and the Queen. Much to te Water's private displeasure, one of the guests who gave a speech at the opening of the South Africa House was the poet Rudyard Kipling whose jingoistic statements during the Boer War had made him unpopular with the Afrikaners, but as Kipling praised modern South Africa in his speech, including him in the ceremony was felt to be a sign of reconciliation. As a diplomat, he successfully lobbied Lord Reith to have the BBC give more favorable coverage to South Africa, charging that the BBC mostly ignored South Africa and even when it did mention South Africa too often played into the Boer stereotype.
Te Water cut an impressive figure in London, with one person remembering him as: "He was of striking appearance, tall, good-looking, and always immaculately groomed; his suits were tailored, I think, in Conduit Street, shirts and shoes bespoke; he favored a narrow-brimmed Homburg, short black coat, striped trousers, suede gloves and a stick". By all accounts a man of much charisma and charm, te Water was widely admired by his staff at the South Africa House and was regarded by British decision-makers as the most able and intelligent of all the Dominion High Commissioners in London. The Afrikaners had once called themselves the Boers because that was what they were, but as the 20th century progressed, many had moved to urban areas and entered the middle classes, leading to the new name Afrikaner being adopted. The popular Boer stereotype was and that of a gun-toting ferocious farmer living out on the veld, fierce in the defense of his family and his farm, and profoundly ignorant of everything beyond farming, horses, guns and the dogma of the Dutch Reformed Church. The suave, elegant diplomat te Water was seen in both Britain and South Africa as the image of the modern Afrikaner who had moved beyond the Boer stereotype. At the same time, the fact that te Water was an active sportsman with an athletic build and had what the British press called a very "masculine appearance" led him to conform enough to the Boer stereotype of a tough and hardy people that there were no fears of him having "gone soft".
An aloof, arrogant man, te Water hated what he called "socialising", regarding the balls and parties he was expected to attend as boring, but was willing to do so in order to make social connections with the British elite. Fluent in both English and French, te Water was regarded as "an orator of remarkable power" and his speeches before the League's General Assembly in Geneva were always well received. One contemporary report from 1932 about the possibility of applying sanctions on Japan for seizing Manchuria from China stated: "The most forceful of the three Dominion speakers and one of the most dynamic within the whole Assembly was te Water". Sir John Simon, the British Foreign Secretary between 1931 and 1935 who sometimes spoke before the League General Assembly, was widely believed to resent the way that te Water's speeches outshone his speeches. One speech te Water gave before the League Assembly in early 1932, suggesting that the League should impose sanctions on Japan for bombing Shanghai, led to Simon's ire who complained that the Japanese embassy in London assumed that te Water was speaking for Britain, and that he was forced to deal with the resulting Japanese protests.
On 19 April 1932, te Water met with Sir Thomas Wilford, the New Zealand high commissioner in London and Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of State, who was attending the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva. According to Stimson's account of the meeting, both Wilford and te Water were upset at the passivity of the British government with regard to the Japanese aggression against China, saying Britain should be doing far more to upheld the League's authority. Stimson himself favored a tougher line against Japan, but was overruled by President Herbert Hoover. However, Stimson was gratified when both Wilford and te Water spoke of their wish to see greater Anglo-American co-operation in Asia, saying this was the best way to restrain Japan. Te Water gave a strong speech before the League General Assembly, saying that the Chinese complaint about Japanese aggression had much merit, and the League should be doing much more than merely sending the Lytton commission out to investigate whatever Japan committed aggression or not, saying that if was the best the League could do, then the peace of the world was doomed. Reflecting his moderate Afrikaner nationalism, the diplomat whom te Water was closest to in London was the Irish High Commissioner John Dulanty, who like him had to balance his nationalism with membership in the Commonwealth. Te Water, who was distantly related to the executed Irish nationalist Robert Emmet, was sympathetic towards Dulanty's efforts to quietly move the Irish Free State away from the British sphere of influence.
In March 1933 as president of the General Assembly of the League of Nations, te Water oversaw the stormy session where the Lytton Report was presented, which concluded that Japan had committed aggression against China in 1931 by seizing Manchuria and that Manchukuo was a sham. In his speech before the Assembly, te Water condemned Japan for its actions and urged sanctions be imposed. The session ended with the Japanese delegate Yōsuke Matsuoka announcing that Japan was leaving the League effective immediately.