The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1911. TROUBLE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1245, 29 September 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1911. TROUBLE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

To those who had hoped that the establishment of the South African Union would heal all the wounds of the Boer War it is bitterly disappointing that the _ forces of race hatred are still at work. Comparatively few outside South Africa doubt the perfect sincerity of General .Botha's devotion to the Imperial cause'and of his anxiety to promote peace and amity between the races in the Union, but it is very clear that he is unable to control the anti-British feeling of a great section of the Dutch which one of his colleagues and a great many bitter busybodies are taking care to keep alive and endeavouring to intensify. During May and June the Minister for Justice, General Hektzoo, while General Botha was in England attending the Imperial Conference, delivered a series of speeches that filled South Africa with as much amazement as indignation. Two of the most important questions—perhaps the two most important immediate questions —in South Africa relate to education and immigration. General Botha is in favour of educational peace and a vigorous immigration policy, and lias expressly accepted on behalf of his Government the educational compromise arrived at by tho Union Parliament. General Hertzog is not only opposed to his chief on both questions, but has publicly, and many times, expressed his opposition to him. In June last he visited Burghersdorp, which is represented in Parliament by Mr. Bl'kton, the Minister for Native Affairs, who defeated the editor of Dc Stein, a violent exponent of the narrowest Boer doctrines. At General Hf.rtzog's reception this defeated candidate was the most prominent figure, and the General's speech was "as uncompromising as the most ardent Dutch-speaking enthusiast could dc-

sire." This was a remarkable slap in the face to his colleague and also to his chief. Yet the Cabinet remains united—or, rather, General Botha has taken no steps to rebuke his rebellious lieutenant. He is an easy-going man, but something more than tol.'rn.ncu and good-nature must be scught in order to explain his singular attitude. The feeling will grow that General Botiia is afraid of the Dutch extremists, whose activities, were they better known, would probably astonish the whole Empire. Early in July, for example, a paper was read in Pretoria to the Conference of the "South African Academy of Language, Literature, and Science." Its title was "The Suffering of the Women and Children in the AnglpAfrican War, 1899-1902." According to the Transvaal Leader the speaker, who is, or was recently, Moderator, of the Dutch Reformed Church in Natal, "dealt in turn with the oppression of the women and children, the ruthless burning of houses, the terrible nature of the life that was passed in the camps, where thousands of women and children perished through starvation, exposure, and neglect; the ill-treatment they received at the hands of officers and men." This outrageous paper was received with approval by the Conference. The Dutch profess that they have "forgiven." the English, but insist that they cannot forget. But, as the Morning Post's Cape Town correspondent observes, "to prate of forgiveness while you misrepresent the conditions governing the - actions which you condcmn is a particularly nauseous species of cant. The worst of it is that this kind of thing does untold harm in South Africa." It makes the Dutch believe that they were treated atrociously and it fills the English with bitter resentment. The position in South Africa to-day is thus pictured by the same correspondent :

The English and Dutch people in this wuntry have to live together. They are facod, as ex-President Steyn pointed out the other day, by tho living threat of the native problem. All their natural interests are in favour of a close association between them. And these natural forces are having, and .will have, an enormous effect in welding tho two stocks into one South African people. If tho concessions havo been during the last few years mostly on the side of the English-speaking people of South Africa; if they luive made sacrifice after sacrifice to tho tender susceptibilities of their Dutch-speaking neighbours; and if tho latter have done little but accent these concessions and sacrifices tho barest justice, and have gone on clamouring for more; all this is, after all, only the natural result of the British method of dealing with alien sections within the British dominions. A long and hard experience has ground deep into the soul of tho British South African tho consciousness that it is his brother Boer who gets all tho favours and is licensed to continue his continual grumbling and grasping, while lio himself has to subsist oil lus pride in the generosity of his race. Luckily, the Britisher in South Africa is a philosophical person. , lie takes the kicks and sees his Dutch-speak-ing neighbour continually collar the halfpence with a shrug of contemptuous philosophy. The sacrifice is worth while because South Africa is going: to lie a great country. He believes that only on such generosities can the foundations of tile future race be laid. And to that future—to the prosperity of his children, and to the inevitable triumph of his own ideals—he looks forward for his reward. But there are limits to this self-sacrifice. Tile limits are extensive, but they are there all the same. 'Ilicy extend to the fullest recognition of the rights of the Dutch-speaking peoplo of South Africa. They do not extend to infringements of tho rights of the English-speaking peoplo; to interferences with the ocfucation of Eng-lish-speaking children, or to tho tolerance of slanders upon tho good name of the English race.

It is to General Botha that the friends of South Africa look for th<i extirpation of racial feeling by making it discreditable. He was reported in one of yesterday's cable messages as having repudiated the recent separatist article in the Volkslcm and declared that "if Britain wasat war Dutch, English, and Afrikanders would be found fighting shoulder to shoulder." That is very pleasant hearing, but it would have been far plcasanter if he had added that he had asked General Heetzoo to tender his resignation. On Monday last General Hertzog, while admitting that there were differencesbetween the Union Ministers, and promising that if he were unable to agree with General Botha he would resign, added that resignation was at present unnecessary. In view of his whole attitude and his frequent and emphatic denunciation and ridicule of his leader's policy, his announcement that it is not necessary at present' to resign will be widely read as an intimation that General Botha may 'be brought into line after all. Should the Prime Minister content himself with loyal utterances, the South African public will be forced to assume that the Hertzoa scctipn has secured control over the Cabinet. That will obviously be a deplorable thing for South Africa and the Empire.