Apartheid

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28537, 17 March 1958, Page 10

Apartheid

We print today a long letter from Mr R. M. Rhoodie, South African information officer in Canberra, attacking “ The “ Press" for its views on apartheid, expressed in a leading article on February 8. It would have been surprising indeed if Mr Rhoodie, as an official advocate for the South African Government, had agreed with these views. It is his manner of disagreeing with them that we find interesting—and which we believe our readers will find illuminating—because it illustrates the South African Nationalists’ passionate, almost fanatical, attachment to racial policies elsewhere regarded as harsh, undemocratic, misguided, and, to many, unchristian. It illustrates also their complete failure to understand or to tolerate criticism of these policies. Mr Rhoodie claims that the South African Government is misrepresented by the Union’s Englishlanguage press; but he fails to add that apartheid has been condemned by all the greatest

newspapers of the world, which have their own independent sources of information. There is no need for Mr Rhoodie to plead for “ a chance to state “ our case ”. The policy and actions of his Government have always been given wide publicity,* even if they have often aroused dismay and disapproval among fair-minded men. “The “ Press ” has availed itself of every reasonable opportunity to report news of South Africa; and Nationalist supporters visiting New Zealand have been

free to express their opinions through its columns.

Readers of Mr Rhoodie’s letter will form their own judgmept of it; but it contains some inaccuracies which warrant comment. He complains that “ The Press ” has given a distorted picture of the treason trial in Johannesburg. Contrary to his claim, “ The “Press” .made no quotations from Australian newspapers or from statements by the defence in the treason trial. However, it quoted “ The • Times ” of London, describing the trial as “ a vast political heresy-hunt, “in the cause of the dogma of “ apartheid ”. Mr Rhoodie will find it extremely difficult to win credence for his Government’s contention that it has uncovered' a formidable Communist plot. His description of Archbishop de Blank, Bishop Reeves, and Father Huddleston as “ those fiery men who use “ the Church of'God to preach “racial politics” is singularly inappropriate from one whose Goveniment has been supported by the Dutch Reformed Church in all its efforts to eliminate racial tolerance. Finally, Mr Rhoodie contends that critics of the South. African Government are robbing the native peoples of “ the chance to enjoy “ unlimited opportunities, free- “ dom, and the fullest de“velopment possible in the “ atmosphere of their own “ administrated lands ”. Obviously Mr Rhoodie’s conception of freedom and opportunity is so much at variance with the commonly accepted meaning of the words that it is impossible to argue with him.