DR. MALANDS CAMPAIGN ON THE RACIAL ISSUE

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26856, 8 October 1952, Page 8

DR. MALANDS CAMPAIGN ON THE RACIAL ISSUE

SOUTH AFRICA

rn,, the Cape Town Correspondent of “The Times'']

The economic prospects of South i Africa have never been more promis- * ing than they are now. The pros- , pects for racial harmony have nevei innkpri bleaker. The two aspects of * this chronic South A£ h rica " d^ oCtape 0 Ctape i Ms* 1 ' of 1 Ve Pe NrtlULrParT 1 S was being held when this was 1 W Outlie one hand Mr J. H. ViljQen, * Miffister of Mines, told. the congress that South African uranium J°J}^ , were so valuable that when fully 1 veloped uranium would mean < for the country as gold production. ( He was referring to an official statemention September 9 that eight more j South African gold mines were to ( undertake the extraction of urannim ( from slime. This, together with increasingly attractive for , South African base mineral P roa HP , tion. as well as steady and on the , whole sound advance m industrial production since the war, means that , South Africa is. about to enjoy a steep j increase in national jncome- ] On the other hand Dr. Malan, the Prime Minister, told the congressthat the Government could not afford to allow final victory in present constitutional crisis to rest with the courts. The will of the people must be ; supreme, which meant that tlw sov- , ereignty of Parliament, which consists of the elected representatives of the people, must be, upheld against tne authority of appointed judges. History of the Crisis Since the constitutional crisis is inseparably embedded in the whole comnlex of -race relations, Dr. Malan s statement means that the Nationalists intend to maintain the direction which they have taken in handling, racial issues here; and the destination to which that course will take them is unknowable. . . To recapitulate briefly, the cohstitutional crisis arose last year when the Government forced througlh Parliament the Separate Representation of Voters Act, providing for communal representation of the Cape Coloured people, who until now have voted on the same roll as Europeans, although their electoral qualifications differed. The Opposition contended that the act was unconstitutional in that it conflicted with a safeguard in the con- . stitution. When the act was promul- . gated it was challenged in the Supreme ; Court and was declared invalid by the » Appellate Division. This judgment re- ’ versed an earlier judgment of the . Appellate Division. The Government held that the Appellate Division erred ’ in reversing its earlier judgment, and argued further that it was politically » and constitutionally undesirable that ; the courts should be empowered to thwart the will of Parliament, which . was the sovereign power in the State. 5 It therefore passed a High Court of i. Parliament Act constituting all mem- . bers of Parliament and of the Senate i a special court to be the Aral court , of appeal on all constitutional mat- ; ters. This court has since sat, and ! has revalidated the Separate Repre- ; sentation of Voters Act. Opposition ’ members and senators boycotted the : High Court, which they declared to : be itself invalid, since it was a device to circumvent a clear safeguard in J the constitution. The High Court of » Parliament Act has been challenged ’ on similar grounds in the Supreme ■ Court, and the Cape Division has ‘ found it to be null and Void. The 3 Government has lodged an appeal to ‘ the Appellate Division, which will 1 probably be heard in November. Moral Objections The successive shocks to Opposition j and non-European opinion in this constitutional crisis have not been only in the Government’s refusal to abide ' by the court’s judgments. The Separ- , ate Representation of Voters Bill was ?. fought in Parliament and in the r country on both legal and moral grounds. The Opposition held that the Government, with all white South 1 Africa, bound to observe » the safeguards in the constitution ; (whose substance is that established s voting rights and the equal status of » English and Dutch as official langu--1 ages may be amended only if the . amending legislation obtains a two- . thirds majority of a joint sitting of r both Houses of Parliament at the third T reading) because those safeguards had j been explicitly reaffirmed as an oblir gation of honour when the Statute of . Westminster was passed. It is the sovereign independence conferred on t the Union by this, statute upon which s the Government and its legal advisers j relied in holding that constitutional safeguards contained in the South . Africa Act (an act of the Parliament □ at Westminster) were no longer binding. The Government’s disregard of this moral obligation gave a greater shock to the Opposition and non- " European public than its juridical e arguments. It was this that in the first place called into being the Torch Com--1 mando.

When this initial shock was followed by the Government’s announcement that it refused to abide by the Appeal Court’s judgment, the Indians, Bantu and Cape Coloured people, for the first time in South African history, made what nas since appeared to be a viable partnership in opposition to race dissemination. This campaign has taken the form of sometimes noisy but always non-violent contravention of discriminatory regulations, such as the use of European entrances to railway stations and the like. .. f £ r as has £° ne it ha s Hot in itself been dangerous. Apart from a certain congestion in the prisons and the diversion of police from other work

it has not really had more than a nuu. ance effect on the Union’s publie life But there have been hints that if thii phase of the non-European campaieJ produces no results the second phua may be strikes. This will be far mJ, serious not only in the interruption of industrial and perhaps mining produc. tion. but in its potentialities for vii. lence. The tragedy is that there is now ■» machinery for consultation between tha natives and the Government. a Natives' Representative Council wu established under the Hertzog legist tion of 1936 establishing the present system of native parliamentary Iranchise. This council, having only advi,. ory functions, felt itself lucres sinwi, frustrated even under United Pawi Government, refusing in effect to co. operate with so pronounced and since,, a Liberal as the late J. H. Hofmeyr It, was less co-operative with the present Government, which has allowed it in lapse. There is thus deadlock in race re. lations. although the Opposition still hopes that if a better atmosphere could be created by some prospect of concessions from the Whites, and throuch undertakings by all parties to abide K the judgments, of the courts (to which the non-Europeans traditionally attach great importance) there might be son» nrospect of racial peace in the land Tms-'does not mean that the Opposi tion is prepared to abolish all discriminatory legislation. Race n. lations are fgr too complicated in this country for that; and as Dr. W w M. Eiselen, the Secretary for Native Affairs, truly shows in a recent state, ment, the abolition of all laws which the passive resistance campaign re. gards as "unjust" would be a disaster for the natives. Among these laws are the prohibition of spirltous liquor to the mass of the Bantu; provisions for the reduction of the redundant scrub stock that are trampling nativa reserves into dust bowls; and prohibi. tion of the sale of native reserve lands to Europeans, who would buy heavily since many of these. lands, though badly handled, are fertile and well watered. Election Outlook From the Opposition and liberal points, of view (which are not necessarily identical in other things) the hope of the country is in the defeat of the Government in the next General Election. That hope cannot be regarded as rosy. It was thought when the Government first announced its intention of trying to circumvent the • judgment of the Appeal Court that many of its adherents would be shaken in their allegiance, for the Courts and the judiciary jot South Africa have always been held in high regati ' But the result of a by-election three ' months ago in Wakkerstroom, a typi- ; cal Transvaal rural constituency, showed that this was not so. ihe ; Government increased its majority : on a total poll of a little more than ' 7000 from the 1276 in the General Kleej tion in 1948, to 2126. With his core of solid followers. Dr. ' Malan will go to the country next year , seeking another “mandate* for apar- ■ thied, demanding support in uphold- . ing the sovereignty of Parliament ani ' by implication, the country against r Court interpretation of British Acts i of Parliament, against interference in , South African affairs by the United , Nations and overseas liberals, and , against an Opposition which, he argues, J equivocates wnenever it is called upot L to state its policy on any important matter. The Nationalists had hoped to fight the General Election on a roll cleared of the Cape Coloured voters, who hold the balance of power in some Cape , constituencies. If an adverse judg- ' ment in the Appeal Court makes that impossible they may seek to improve a their chances by bxtending the Euroi pean franchise to males and lemala » of 18 years of age. They believe that ; if they do this their aggregate volt » will be increased by anything up t» ; 100,000, being convinced that tht j majority of young people are suppotf ters of Nationalism. They are prob- . ably right, for the Nationalists have ; the extremists’ traditional advantage of _ emotional initiative against a middlef of-the road. Opposition, and youg i people are emotional in politics. 1 Overseas Criticism ■ The Opposition will have to fight 1 hard if it wishes to win the next eke--5 tion. If it loses and Dr. Malan re--1 turns to power, it is expected that by 1 increasing the number of Senator! or “ by some other Court-proof device he * will seek to obtain the necessary two- } thirds majority for re-enacting the 1 Separate Representation of Voters Ad and probably repealing the entrenched J clauses once and for all. Meanwhile the power of the Oppo- . sition is seriously embarrassed by rei current attacks on South Afriee it _ the United Nations and continued sniping from certain overseas writer! j and speakers, both in Britain and other t countries, which anger all South Atej cans, and may anger some Oppo®’ a tion-minded South Africans enough to ■t drive them into the Nationalist curep e All discussion of South African aflaM e must take cognisance of the fact (M it was put In a local interview by n Professor Letbman Hersh, president« . the International Union for the Sci«- ;. tlflc Study of Population, and cheue man of the International Statistic. y Institution) that “the problem in 8ou'« Africa is unique. England could W l ' n don India, and France could abSM®> a a colony when the position -MCW- 18 d untenable, but the Europeans hers I* ls ' k not give up South Africa ”