The Dominion. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1911. UNREST IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1223, 4 September 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1911. UNREST IN SOUTH AFRICA.

South Africa at the present; time is in a condition far from satisfactory. Of late the more reactionary sections of _ the Dutch population have been displaying a vigour ancl a vituperative power which have not been equalled since the days of Mr. Kiiuger. General Eotiia, who has invariably exercised a moderating influence upon Boers of the old type, has been absent from the country for some months, ancl it would seem that, his presence and his counsels withdrawn, the anti-British portion of the community has been carrying things with a high hand indeed. General Heutzog, the Union Minister of Justice, is the leader of the reactionaries. The Cabinet is known to be at sixes' and sevens, and the marvel would be if it were not. General Hertzoo, backed by a kindred spirit, Mr. Abraham Fischer, Minister of Lands, openly flouts his colleagues, even the Prime Minister, by holding up their declared policy to the scorn and ridicule of his own particular people. There is, for example, the question of immigration. A Commission composed, in equal numbers, of Dutch and English members was appointed to investigate into, and make recommendations upon, the need for, or the desirableness of, attracting additional population from oversea to settle on the land. The Commission favoured the encouragement of immigration, and [ drew up a judicious ancl what would

have doubtless proved to be an effective scheme of settlement. General Botha, all his colleagues save two, and tho entire Opposition approved of the Commission's proposals, and it was understood that next session Parliament would be asked to pass the necessary legislation to carry out the scheme.. But Messrs. Hertzog and Fischer objected. They wanted no new settlers, least of all from Great Britain. The Dutch majority is precarious enough now without enlarging the registers on behalf of the Progressives. Therefore they declare that the landless Afrikanders (Dutch) must first be on the land before _ any scheme of immigration is considered, and placed there, too, at the expense of the State. This" General Hertzog, we should imagine, must be a peculiarly aggravating variety of politician. He seems to possess a genius for distorting facts, when, by any possible twist, he may level some charge or other against tho British, or tho Boer's bite noire, "the capitalists." Before he laid down the law that the useless Boer idlers in towns and dorps, who could get access to land now if they desired, must be provided with farms and cash out of the pockets of the industrious, General Hertzog enunciated the characteristic back-veld doctrine that the immigration of white settlers into the Union "is in itself undesirable and injurious, apart altogether from the question of the character or suitability of the immigrants." In July at Johannesburg he had the amazing effrontery to declare that the whole movement for State-subsidised immigration originated with the capitalists. Ho knew perfectly well that the renewed interest in tlio subject was due to tho report of the Commission alluded to, and that the capitalists— that is, tho liand mine-owners—can have no pecuniary or personal interest in the settlement of whites on the unoccupied Crown lands within the Union. But this "slim" individual knows how to gratify the class from which he comes himself, namely, the back-veld Boers of the Free State. South Africa would have been a poor country to-day had it not been for its gold and diamond mines, which capital alone could develop. ■ Tho very men, the capitalists, who have made South Africa and its people wealthy, are • those whom General Heutzog and his congeners apparently never tire of deriding. It is difficult to say whether they dislike tho capitalists as a class more than they do the whole British race. General Heutzog likes to compare tho British with the Hollanders—always at the expense of the British, Wo quote from the Cape Times: "Tho utter-recklessness with which General Hertzog perverts facts in order to suit his purposo, as well as the racial bias which colours so much of his political thought, is curiously illustrated by a comparison he makes between England and Holland." England, the General implied, was a nation of paupers, while Holland, he said, had not a pauper within its boundaries—a statement meant for the back-veld and untrue. When . a responsible journal like the (Jape Times is found declaring, as it did twico within three days— on July 13 and 15 —that certain courses if pursued by the Dutch could end only in civil war, the fact must be realised that the situation within the sub-continent is grave. We dare not for a moment consider the possibility of civil war; nor, we believe, docs the Cape Times foresee another appeal to arms. All that is evidently meant is that more reasonable, less aggressive methods must be adopted by the reactionary Dutch towards the British. General Hertzog is not the sole offender. During the present year the political predicants, the Dutch clergymen, most of them from Holland, have been lifting up their voices as they did in pre-war days. A remarkable body, composed mainly of predicants, has been formed, named the "South African Academy of Language, Literature, and Art," but which is in reality, as the Progressive press has termed it, "a,Boer school of reactionary politics." At a meeting of this body two Hollander clergymen returned to the old subject of the concentration camps, charging Lord Kitchener with inhumanity, and a deliberate desire to "kill off tho women and children." The predicant who thus sought to revive the very bitterest of racial animosities ignored General Botha's statement at the Vcreeniging Conference: "Today we are glad to know that our women and children are under British protection." The fact seems to be that the present political supremacy of the Dutch has aroused the latent antipathies of the anti-British section of that community. General Hertzog has fanned- the slumbering embers into a blaze. Dutch and British do not seem to be drawing together as hoped for. Last month General Hertzog spoke at Burghersdorp, CaDO Colony, and, commenting upon liia speech, the local Dutch paper said: "The Dutch and the English stand quite apart in South Africa, and there are no grounds at all for asserting that they are, or ever will be, one."