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The reason I moved the page is that "Natal Union of South Africa membership referendum" is not easy to read or understand if you don't already know what it's talking about, since "Union of South Africa" is a single phrase working as an adjectival noun in front of another adjectival noun ("membership") modifying "referendum". Yet unless you know what the Union of South Africa is, you are likely to read "Natal Union". There are many way that I think are clearer, like Natal referendum, 1909 (there was no other) or South African membership referendum in Natal, 1909. —Srnec (talk) 14:05, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The reason for the current title is the WP:NC-GAL#Elections and referendums guideline, which sets out the naming format for referendums as "Demonym topic referendum, year", so the second option you propose would not work. I agree that as a standalone phrase it could be construed as being confusing, but when you look at the actual article, the context is very clear in the first sentence. One thing I would query is whether there is an appropriate demonym for Natal (Natalian?), as this may make it clearer (as "Danish European Communities membership referendum, 1972 etc are). Number57 21:39, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
