SOUTH AFRICA'S PROGRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 1, 1 January 1921, Page 5

SOUTH AFRICA'S PROGRESS.

I ■ ■ ■» ■ PLENTY OF CHEAP COAL. EXPANSION OF INDUSTRY. In spite of racial controversies and bitterness. South Africa is making steady progress. Mr. E. 1.. Leake, for some years a member of the Johannesburg City Council, who i« visiting New Zealand, has given a Press representative his impression of the present state of the I'nion. "The war." he said, "gave a great fillip both 1o agriculture and industry, and if only the rival parties could pull together, there i* no saying how far we might not -.'o. For our coal there is an unlimited market, and the coalfields ot the Transvaal are very rich. The railways are carrying all they can. but -they are not equal to the demand lor bunker coal at the various ports. Steamers have been waiting .-ix weeks in Durban for coal. Large numbers of locomotives are being imported and rolling stock built to cope with the traffic, and many of the lines are being duplicated and electrified. Thus, a new line w being pushed up to Pietermarit7.burg from Durban, duplicating the existing track, but not following the same way. This section is being electrified. Similar progress is taking place in the railways in the Transvaal. Coal is cheap compared with the cost of the English article. In addition, there I has been a great growth of industries, and we are producing many things we imported before the war.

" Agriculture also, is prosperous, and a vast irrigation scheme involving the expenditure of hundreds of thousands ot pounds, i? being undertaken. Very- large quantities of maize are exported, and now there is great development in fruit growing. . especially citrus culture. Hundreds of square miles have been laid down in citrus groves. Education is well advanced, both primary and secondary schooling being free, nnd we engage the heat teaching talent the world can produce, and build schools of which we are

proud."' Of South African politics, Mr. Deake, like most South Africans, was not disposed to talk free./. At the same time he did not think the agitation of Herzog and the extremists of the Nationalist Party would come to anything. The true" interests of South Africa ail lay within the British Empire, and it was purely a matter of sentiment and feeling artificially fostered that made for separatism —much as in Ireland. Then, the native races, which outnumbered the whites many times, had to be considered; they could not be ignored in such a matter, and they were bitterly opposed •to the republican propaganda. General Smuts had called on all moderates to bury the hatchet, for the time being at any" rate, and work for the common good, and there were evidences that this sane policy would, in the long run, prevail.