UNDER WHICH KING?

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 293, 8 December 1920, Page 4

UNDER WHICH KING?

In their main issue the forthcoming •general elections in South Africa, -will be the most momentous _mcc the Union

was formed. The four-paTty system that has been the feature of South African politics for so long has disappeared, and the elections will be fought) out between the new South African-Unionist fusion on the one side, and the Nationalists and secessionist party on the other, with Laibou. as a disturbing third force of uncertain strength. The situation hi.therto must havo seemed confused to tho 'jnlooker. The Dutch element was split in two, the loyalists following Botha and then Smuts, and the secessionists following Hertzog. The British community was represented hy the -Unionists under Sir Thomas Smartt, and the Labour clement by a party that, under the leadership of tho able Mr. Cresswejll, increased its membership at the last election from five to twenty-one. General Smuts, taking over from Botha, made union of parties for the good of South Africa, and the maintenance of the British connection, his chief aims. He has approached each of the other three parties, but only the Unionists have responded n_ he wished. The Nationalists' goal is an independence in which South Africa will be. ruled by the Dutch in the interests _f the Dutch. As a writer in the "Round Table'" puts it, tho movement "feeds the embers of a crude racialism, which South Africa vainly hoped she had extinguished in 1910." General Smuts, on the other hand, is heart nnd soul against racialism. Of Dutch extraction himself, and one who fought for Dutch independence againt us, his ardent hope is to sec South Africa develop peacefully in a fusion of races under the British flag. Tn pursuing that hope he is willing to merge the identity of his own Dutch party in the one which represents the British portion of the community, labour, on the other hand, deprecates the importance attached to the is-ues of racialism and the British connection, and seeks to make economic questions tho deciding factors. But since the unsatisfactory general election of a few months ago, the Labour party has supported the Government, and it standi for the maintenance of South Africa as, part of the Empire. This attitude, the appeal that the new fusion should make to all moderate loyalists, and the fact that the independence ideal of the Nationalists has a disintegrating effect on their own ranks, are important factors on the side of loyalty and progress on non-racial lines. The Nationalists have no allies in their fight against the Empire.