TO RETIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 288, 5 December 1932, Page 7

TO RETIRE.

HERTZOG DECIDED.

Conditions in South Africa

On the Mend.

ADHERE TO GOLD STANDARD. (United F.A.—Electric Telegraph—-Copj-riffht) • CAPETOWN, December 4. The Prime Minister of South Africa, General Hertzog, in the course of an address to his constituents, gave no hint of a change in monetary policy. ' On the contrary he said he could not imagine a greater calamity than the one which would befall the country if it were so foolish as to go off the gold standard.

General Hertzog accused the Leader of the Opposition, General Smuts, of ignorance regarding the v recovery of Australia. He quoted a Melbourne report that wool production had cost 9£d a lb and realised B£d a, lb, and that the Wool Committee had stated that the industry was on the verge of collapse.

Australia, like Britain, said General Hertzog, had had to compromise with her creditors or declare her insolvency. Devaluation was blind robbery within the law and only justified by the direst state of necessity. General Hertzog said he was convinced that the economic conditions in the Union were on the mend. The defection of the Labour party at Germiston was another indication of the efforts of enemies to rob Afrikanders of their language rights. The Prime Minister announced that he intended to retire from politics' after the general election in 1934. .