‘Birth Of Sanity’ The Need In S.A.

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29325, 3 October 1960, Page 13

‘Birth Of Sanity’ The Need In S.A.

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, October 1. The Leader of the Liberal Party, Mr Jo Grimond. said today that Britain’s attitude to the question of South Africa remaining in the Commonwealth should be decided by one test—how best to hasten the end of apartheid and the “birth of sanity in that unhappy country.”

But, he added, if (South African) Liberals and dissenter Nationalists, and the spokesman of the black Africans, advised that there would be more chance of sanity returning to South Africa if there were expulsion. Britain’s attitude should be uncompromising. Mr Grimond added: “I have been against turning South Africa out (of the Commonwealth) because it might have looked like an abandonment of black Africans and Liberals.”

The issuing of the Monckton report on the Rhodesian Federation and the results of the referendum in South Africa would also mean changes elsewhere, Mr Grimond said. ■ Britain had to make her protectorates “model communities.” She should "revise the high commissioner’s office” and move the responsibility for the protectorates out of South Africa. The Libera! conference passed an “urgency” resolution urging the Government to take the lead in pressing for the early establishment of an international police force under the United Nations, as the first step towards the enforcement of international law.

It said such a force should be individually recruited and armed adequately for police action. It should be available to the Security Council or the General Assembly or—under precise regulations—on demand to any member State in which law and order were threatened by conditions beyond its power and control. Collective Security The conference rejected a policy of unilateral disarmament by the decisive margin of 607 votes to 78. The delegates approved instead an executive resolution which called on the Government to end immediately any further independent manufacture of nuclear weapons, recognised that the defence of Britain must be founded on a policy of collective security, and reaffirmed support for N.A.T.O. The executive resolution also requested the Government to negotiate with the United States and other members of N.A.T.O. for a more effective joint control over the use of nuclear weapons, and over all operations by American forces on. or from. British territory.