RACE ANTAGONISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 170, 20 July 1935, Page 13

RACE ANTAGONISM.

UNEASY SOUTH AFRICA

HATRED OF THE KING

DUTCH CONTROL OF CIVIL SERVICE. During the recent Royal Silver Jubilee celebrations a Dutch vernacular newspaper iu South Africa published an artielo demanding: "Who is this George Windsor that has reigned 25 years too long?" And after the South African Minister of Justice (Mr. O. Pirow) had opened an agricultural show and the band was playing "God Save the King," the Minister and Dutch members of the audience remained seated, only Britishers standing. These incidents were related in an interview bv Mr. A. E. Joseph, an official of the Civil Service in Natal, who is spending a holiday with relall \es in Christcliurch. Outbursts of racial feeling, leading to dangerous controversies, were common, said Mr. Joseph. The King meant nothing to tho Dutch, though the present Prime Minister, General J. B. M. Hertzog, was more anti-Imperialistic than anti-British.^ Mr. Joseph believes that a serious crisis must come at some time owing to Dutch dominance of the civil service and British control of industry and trade. The Boer, essentially a farmer, could not compete with the Britisher in business, hut he was a born politician and received political instruction fiom his earliest days. Persons in Government employment were required to speak both Afrikaans and English, said Mr. Joseph, and this requirement was being exploited politically by the Boers through the periodical examinations that were held in all Government Departments. If a Britisher showed the slightest hesitancy in Afrikaans he was disqualified, but the examiners never failed a member of tho other race. The position in tho civil service was becoming progressively worse. On the. railways British members of the staff were being retired prematurely and their places filled by proteges of the Nationalist Go\ernmcnt. "It's just a matter of time till somethin" serious happens," said Mr. Joseph. Curiously enough, the Boer farmer was most hospitable to the British traveller, and the few old Huguenot families that remained were among the most broadminded people in the Union.