Chequers Talks May Cover S.A. Affairs

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29192, 30 April 1960, Page 13

Chequers Talks May Cover S.A. Affairs

LONDON, April 29. , South Africa’s racial policies are expected tofigure in informative talks this week-end between the - British Prime Minister, Mr Harold Macmillan, and" four Commonwealth leaders, including South Africa's Minister for External Affairs (Mr Louw).

z Mr Macmillan will be host at Chequers, his country residence in Buckinghamshire, to the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan (Field-Marshal Ayub Khan), the Canadian Prime Minister (Mr Diefenbaker), the Federal Rhodesian Prime Minister (Sir Roy Welensky), and Mr Louw. This will be the first opportunity that Mr Macmillan and the Commonwealth statesmen will have to hold informal discussions in advance on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ conference, opening in London next Tuesday. At Chequers, Mr Louw will be able to give Mr Macmillan an up-to-date review of the situation in South Africa, where racial troubles have resulted in worldwide condemnation of South Africa’s apartheid (racial segregation) policies. There have been demands from several Commonwealth statesmen for a formal debate at next week’s conference on the South African situation, which attracted world-wide attention when 67 demonstrating Africans were killed by police gunfire at Sharpeville last month.

But any discussions on this issue are likely to be informal and outside the conference itself. It has been a long-standing practice that the internal affairs of member countries are not discussed at formal conference sessions.

The Australian Prime Minister (Mr Menzies) and Sir Roy Welensky are among the Commonwealth statesmen who are opposed to formal debate. But it is accepted that the subject will be discussed informally by groups of Ministers.

Malaya’s attitude has been summed up by the Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, who has announced he intends to speak out before the Commonwealth Prime Ministers on the violence used against Africans in South Africa.’

All the Prime Ministers or their representatives will have arrived in London by the week-end. Sir Roy Welensky said yesterday that he believed some links in the Commonwealth chain were so weak “ I do not think the Empire would be any worse if they were severed."

Sir Roy Welensky, speaking at a farewell party on the eve of his departure for London, said he did not hold with some of the events taking place in some Commonwealth countries.

He added that since he was not in a position to say whether those policies were right or wrong, he had not the right to sit in judgment on those other countries of the Commonwealth. The Leader of the British Labour Party (Mr Gaitskell) said

in a May Day message published today that he hopes the question of South African racial discrimination is “raised with vigour” at the conference. Mr Gaiskell also said he hoped the chance would not be missed “to make it abundantly clear to the South African representative that the Governments of the Commonwealth regard the recent events with anger and disgusj, and that policies of racial discrimination are utterly contrary to the principles which hold the Commonwealth together.” He described the police shooting at Sharpeville on March 21, when more than 70 Africans were killed, as “a terrible testimony to the consequences of the rule of a group of white men determined to treat the majority of their fellow citizens as second class citizens because of their colour. ~ “The establishment of a police state, the imprisonment without trial of Africans, Indians and the little band of Europeans who have stood so courageously by their side, have shocked every decent man and woman in Britain,” he said. - c