HERTZOG REGIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 303, 22 December 1932, Page 7

HERTZOG REGIME.

COLLAPSE FORECAST.

Former Colleague Denounces

Racialism

TIELMAN ROOS COMES BACK. (United r.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received 11 aim.) CAPETOWN, December 21. The collapse of the Hertzog Government is foreshadowed by the return to politics of Judge Tielman Roos, who was Minister of Justice in the first Nationalist Government. He resigned owing to ill-health and was subsequently appointed to the Appeal Court.

The country wag startled a few days ago when Judge Roos, speaking to his former constituents, denounced racialism. He has now announced his resignation from the Bench and hopes to form a coalition.

A motion of no-confidence in the Nationalists is anticipated to be carried by Parliament when it meets on January 20. .

Tielman Johannes de Villiers Roos, the South African lawyer and politician, was born and educated at Capetown. He was elected to the Union House of Assembly in 1915 as an ardent Nationalist (Dutch) member. He. was bitterly opposed to the policy of General Smuts, leader of the South African party, who was working for a union of the two white races in South Africa. In 1924 the Nationalists came into power, 'with the support of the Labour party, and General Hertzog, the Premier, made Roos Minister of Justice. Two years later the Imperial Conference in London, on Hertzog'e initiative, laid down a new definition of the status of the Dominions. Roos theit moderated liis extremist attitude, as he saw that South Africa had. now in effect obtained the essentials of nationhood, for which he and his followers had been striving.

A bitter controversy arose over the design for the new South African flag, Hertzog supporting a design which excluded the Union Jack. Roos, seeing that it was the last point holding the two sections apart, arranged a conference between Hertzog and Smuts, at which a compromise was effected-by the inclusion of the Union Jack as well as the Transvaal and Orange. Eree State emblems. He had much to do with the conclusion of the severely-criticised treaty with Germany, t which, he declared, did not interfere with the preferences given to Britain.