WORLD NEWS IN STORY AND PICTURE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

WORLD NEWS IN STORY AND PICTURE

SOUTH AFRICA AND DEFENCE. Mr. O. Pirow, the Minister of Defence of the Union of South Africa, announced that the Government will spend £5,000,000 additional on anna and defence works, and* £1,000,000 on coastal defences over three years. The Minister said the Union would train land forces likely to be superior to any enemy they might have to meet. Equipment of the Air Force would bear comparison with any inside or outside the British Commonwealth. At least two harbours would l>e fortified more strongly than any other Dominion. The Government aimed at mobilising 1000 pilots and 137,000 troops. Conscription would produce a further 150,000. Mr. Piro\|f said the Government would never sanction the training of natives in the use of arms, but they would be used in all except actual military duties. Selected labour battalions from the Rand mines, operating under skilled miners, with unlimited quantity of dynamite could be of great military value.—Cable.

While the land and air forces of South Africa are controlled by the country itself, the Union haa no proper navy, that very necessary duty being undertaken by Great Britain. After the opening of the Suez Canal the great importance of the Cape of Good Hope route was considerably lessened, with a result that only a small British fleet was stationed in South Africa, with its base at Simonstowii, not far from Capetown. The South Africans then were not worried. They thought they were safe and didn't worry much about army, navy or air force. Then came the Italian assault on Ethiopia and her claim to (toHsession of the country. I say "claim 7 ' because the Ethiopians have not been conquered. However, the fear is that Italy, like France, and to a lesser extent, Belgium, will raise large

Br ARFAD SZIGETVAKY.

forces of native or, in other word*, black, troops to help defend their countries, not only In Africa but in Europe or elsewhere. That fear of native troops has more to do with the enlarging of the South African military forces than almost anything else. And now we come to the point of British regiments which are composed of non-European people. Outside of India only one regular native regiment exists and that is the King's African Rifles, famous and gallant soldier* who are negroes, with their oflieer» British. Once U|*on a time there were other native regiments oil the Briti«h Army list. One of the oldest regiments in the British Army, the British West Indies Regiment, was formed in Queen Elisabeth's reign. Composed of African negroes, under white Britten officers, it had a

tpltndid record in African campaign* and later in Franee, where thm regiment supplied not only fighting sol dieri but labour battalions. Ju«t after the Great War, when paoplf thought there would be no more war tbts famous regiment was disbanded It was "washed out." There U also the ease of th# Wei haiwei R«|(iiueiit. Composed ol Chinese under British officers, it wu> formed just after Britain obtaine* the territory id Cliina known by thai name. Tne regiment fought witii great valour against men of its own country during whet is known as tlx 1 Boxer Trouble in IWOO. However, tjirough a blunder at the British War Office and an incorrect cable which followed, the regiment was abolished. And mo ended a British Chinese regiment which Prince Henry of Prussiu, himself a soldier, described as the finest native regiment he had seen during liis world tour. The jMiint i« that Britain apparently wishes to avoid any native troo|M out«ide of ludia. On the other hand in Africa, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and (Spain use them extensively. South Africa, through Mr. Pi row. states that "the Government would never sanction the training of natives in the use of arms, but tbey would be used in all excejii military duties."