SOUTH AFRICAN INCIDENTS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 73, 23 September 1914, Page 8

SOUTH AFRICAN INCIDENTS

' RESIGNATION- OF GENERAL BYERS. A long telegram _ received this afternoon by the Premier from the High Commissioner gives the Press Bureau's official v publication of correspondence between Generals Byers and Smuts regarding the former's resignation of the post of Cohimandant-Geneval of the South African Defence Forces. General Byers states that he disapproved the sending of commandos to German South-West Africa for the purpose of conquering that territory. The gist of his explanation is a disbelief that loyalty to the British Crown requires an act of aggression, without provocation, against a German colony. General Byers declared that the function of South Africa's army should not be offence, but defence. If Germans crossed the border or otherwise behaved as enemies to South Africa, the Union's forces would have their proper employment in dealing with the aggressors, but, in the opinion of the late Comma-ndant, the Germans in South-West Africa had not been guilty of objectionable acts against South Africa.. General Smuts disagreed emphatically with General Byers's reasons for the resignation.