A Pandora’s Box (blessings and evils) – Jan Smuts was that proverbial paradox. When you opened him up, there was good and bad.
He was a South African and Commonwealth statesman who embraced hard-line racial segregation before seeking a measure of compromise. A barrister who was twice South African Prime Minister, he was criticised for being ‘a committee of one’.
Smuts was an advocate of the (British) Commonwealth, but embraced the imperialist notion of a ‘civilising mission’. On the other hand, he favoured international cooperation and pushed for the setting up of the League of Nations.
