Apartheid 'Appalled’

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30302, 30 November 1963, Page 13

Apartheid 'Appalled’

(.V Z P A -Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, Nov. 29. The deputy-chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Lord Walston, said last night in London that on seeing apartheid at work on a recent visit to South Africa he had been “more appalled by that than anything I had read or listened to before.” “There is no question that the economic standards of the Africans in South Africa are very considerably higher than Africans in the surrounding territories,” he said. The principle of apartheid, he said, did not merely hold that "this is our country, we have made it and created its wealth. We will allow Africans to come to work and share in the economic benefits. but they cannot have votes or citizenship.” “Could Be Defended” Such “political” apartheid could be defended by reasoned argument, but apartheid in the republic went much further because it kept people apart solely on grounds of their colour. Lord Walston went on. Non-whites were refused permission to develop economically except in specified areas. Children were educated in racially segregated schools so there was no possibility of unifying and forming an understanding and communal sympathy. Referring to Southern Rhodesia, Lord Walston said the pace of the movement for majority rule was so fast that radical change would have to come about far more quickly than a cool economist would recommend. "Unless there is something like that, you will not get steady economic growth. "You will get lots of sabotage. suppression by the Government. each side taking entrenched positions further and further apart, followed by a spark and explosion.”