RUINOUS POLICY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 79, 13 January 1949, Page 4

RUINOUS POLICY

Bleak Picture of South Africa

SHARP COLOUR LINE DRAWN (P.A.) WELLINGTON, January 12. A land of ruinous politics, of a sharp colour line, where politics, weather, and the uninstructed, underprivileged people combine to destroy the very land itself, was the picture given by Mr Herebrt Ross when he returned to New Zealand after almost 40 years in the Union of South Africa.

Mr Ross has worked as a missionary among the compound boys, as a specialist nurserymen, and as a farm and estate manager in three provinces —Cape Province, Natal, and Transvaal. Restless and bitter as South African politics have been for many years, Mr Ross sees worse, bitterness and civil strife inevitably ahead unless the old hatreds are allowed to die instead of -being whipped up by the Prime Minister (Dr. D. ;F. Malan) since May, and by the Broederbond, the secret society about which there is no secret, to which Dr. Malan and his party leaders belong.

With the avowed determination to cut ties with Britain and re-establish a republic, Dr. Malan, Mr Ross added, had gained power mainly through the old and tragic colour question by raising again the bogy that the coloured section would swamp the white, races. His party held on by a slender margin and might not in fact hold on long, but it had worked fast in a halfyear.

Rearming of Farmers

“The rearming of the back veldt farmers is explained by them as a need to meet foi’ce with force in the event of a coloured rising; so rifles and ammunition are distributed throughout the country.” said Mr Ross. “It is a fact that there is grave discontent among the natives, but what are they going to rise with: sticks and assegais? Dr. Malan’s opponents see more dangerous consequences still from the re-establishment, rearming and drilling of commandos, in the faster fanning of the old fires toward civil strife over the still deeper issue—the breakaway from Britain, and the proclamation of a new South African republic Answering this, Dr. Malan and speakers for the Broederbond say that it will be done constitutionally; that there will be no need for strife. They have even named their next president, General J. J. Strydom.” In a curious way, colour bar politics were actually destroying the country physically, said Mr Ross, but that began many years ago when, by the Native Lands Act of 1913 and later Acts, the native peoples’ way of life was disrupted, and they could not produce enough food to maintain their families. The story was long and complex, but the position to-day was that 10,000,000 natives were generally denied land ownership except in their native reservations, which were hopelessly inadequate in area and fertility to feed the natives. There were two consequences: the native peoples Hoicked to the cities and towns and built their abominable shanty towns, or to mining town compounds; or they retired to reservations and higher country that farmers did not want.

Destruction of Land “As farmers, these native peoples are as a rule inefficient; they plough and work up their bits of Hillside and valley without regard to erosion dangers in a. country of violent storms. They burn off and leave hill lands open for erosion to wreak havoc. They know nothing about contour ploughing, and could not contour plough if they did. It is cold ill the high country in the African winter, so they Rave stripped their lands of trees. So it is that vast areas of this country, which even in its virgin state was of faxlower fertility than New Zealand, are pouring down to the sea. As a result, some 23,000,000 morgen (about 50,000,000 acres) have been declared eroded lands. Another official estimate is that a Quarter of the total soil fertility has gone, and 200,000 morgen are being destroyed eyery year. ' . “Unrest in politics can obviously disrupt a country’s wellbeing. Here politics are helping to destroy the land itself,” lie said.