SOUTH AFRICA AND UNIFICATION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 51, 2 March 1909, Page 7

SOUTH AFRICA AND UNIFICATION.

« NATIVES OBJECT TO THE CONSTITUTION. Telegraph — Press Association.— Copyright CAPETOWN, Ist March. The chiefs of the .Ba-Rolong tribes "(the Chuana, a Bantu nation of many tribes in Beohuanaland and the Transvaal) are opposed to the Constitution drawn up for the South African Union. i Lord fielborne, High Commissioner for South 'Africa, in an address at the 'University of Capetown, strongly opposed the breaking-up of Basutoland and other native reserves and the allotment of them to whites. He declared that the natives were entitled to a share of tho land. "Lord Selborne also deprecated the granting of a uniform franchise. He, advocated that a Commission of Judges , be set up, and suggested that the civilised natives be enfranchised, while representative councils should be provided for those who are unenfranchised, with freedom of speech but no legislative powers. - With reference to the native franchise question, which has been widely discussed lately, the- Cape Argus suggests that the interests of the whites and the rights of the natives would be guartffceed if, under closer union, the native masses had special representation in the iFed^ral Parliament. "Unification," it Gays, "would at once coalesce the natives in South Africa. Up to the present the native policy has been a disintegrating force, and there have been no points of •union between the different tribes; but -as soon as unification was adopted the tribes would come together, influenced by interests common to all. They would be grouped by the white central authority as one party in the State, controlled by ■that authority, and answerable to it ; and inevitably they would learn to act together in -presenting their views, or 'n guarding their interests. Here we see created out of disunited and easilygoverned factions a formidable group much more difficult to control. The intrusion of the political faftor into that overwhelming mass would be feared by the whites. The enormous mass of the natives are not ready for politics, and •the franchise would not be tho best means for uplifting them ; while it would introduce among the whites a ■disrupting force."