ATTACK ON APARTHEID

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28266, 2 May 1957, Page 11

ATTACK ON APARTHEID

View of Roman Catholics

(Rec. 10 p.m.) DURBAN, May 1. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Durban (Archbishop Denis Hurley) last night described apartheid as a fantastic outpouring of restrictive legislation. He said the South African Government should know that human dignity and self-expression had an explosive force second to none when subjected to undue compression. It was utterly incredible, he said, that rational human beings should plan a “celestial future for a white herrenvolk in South Africa by creating the conditions of a volcano under the framework of their plan.” Archbishop Hurley was addressing a meeting of protest against South Africa’s Native Laws Amendment Bill and “other restrictive measures.”

The present South African Government might go down in history, but this would be not, as they thought, for ensuring the white supremacy in South Africa, but for holding a mirror to the face of white South Africa, he said.

The fantastic outpouring of restrictive laws culminating in the Native Laws Amendment Bill had shown “what segregation means and what apartheid really is. “God grant that we may have the decency to recoil and to alter the present trend in time to avert disaster.” he added.