AFRICAN UNION. ADDRESS BY HON. G. FOWLDS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 25, 31 January 1911, Page 8

AFRICAN UNION. ADDRESS BY HON. G. FOWLDS.

Hon. G. Fowlds addressed the New Zealand Club at the V.M.C.A. after luncheon, to-day on his recent visit to Africa. There was a large attendance, Mr. P. C. Freeth presiding. Mr. ¥owlds said lie had endeavoured to destroy the hallucination that prevailed in some distant parts of the Empire that one English political party was in favour of colonial development, while the other -was inimical to it. He then touched upon what had been called "Gladstone's Mistake." This did not, h-i said, consist in giving back the Transvaal to the Boers, but in not doing it earlier. From what he (Mr. Fowlds) had since seen he held that Mr.' Balfour's fears of granting the new South African colonies self-govenment were wholly unjustified. He thought so at the time they were expressed. His subsequent visit to South Africa had confirmed him in that belief. He saw then, as now, that had the granting of the Constitution been delayed for, say, three years there would have been most serious consequences for South Africa and for the Empire. Mr. Fowlds paid a high tribute to Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman's policy of granting, a Constitution. For the future of South Africa he had but little anxiety,- as far as tho white races were concerned. He thought the language division —the only real division —would disappear. The Dutch were most desirous that their children, should speak English. Mr. Fowlds described General Hertzog's principle on the language question as sound and reasonable, and -essential to the people in the retention of the traditions of their forefathers. He thought all the white people of South Africa would be as attached and as loyal to the British Empire as any other self-governing people belonging to it. He described the inherent love of the Boers for liberty, and their hard environment, and held them to be, physically, intellectually. an< J morally, the equal of any other race in the world. When trouble first came there were Boers who were as much opposed to Krugerism as was any Briton, in South Africa. But when the war drum sounded then they naturally, as New Zealanders would do in like circumstances, took up arms with their own countrymen. It would be . found that such families as Botha and Joub'ert in the majority of cases were strongly,; opposed to Kruger. The Hollander ele- , ment, led by Dr. Leyds, had been', too, a source of trouble, but Mr. Fowlds was able to quote a prominent Hollander leader who, in speaking of the British Empire, said, " Should ever the time come, united South Africans all would be found standing shoulder to shoulder with other Britons in its defence."

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