NO SUPPORT

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 31, 7 February 1922, Page 8

NO SUPPORT

FOR REPUBLICAN IDEA

SOUTH AFRICAN MODERATES'

OPPOSITION.

(AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZBALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.)

(Received February 7, 2.30 p.m;)

CAPETOWN, 6th February. Fifteen Nationalist and Labour members of Parliament in Pretoria received a deputation transmitting the resolution of the strikers demanding a Republic. Mr. Roos, chairman of the Transvaal Nationalist Party, said the party would do nothing unconstitutional, because for one thing .it was only partly armed artd they would be shot down like dogs.'Other Nationalist speakers said they had had enough of republic by violence. Ultimately the meeting appointed a committee of three Nationalists and two ■Labourites to consider the deputation' 3 request. „ A Johannesburg message states that a big meeting in the Town Hall strongly

condemned Sunday's republican resolution. The speakers exhorted the strikers to stick to the economic issue. My. Boydell, leader of the Labour Party, disclaims any sympathy with Mr. Waterson'a revolutionary proposals, and declares that in any case a National Republic would be a social and economic disaster. At the same time, he declares that the policy of the Government is mainly responsible for the present situation.

Mr. Barlow; the only Labour member from the Free State, also repudiates Mr. Waterson's tactics, and calls on all the workers in the Free State to support constitutional authority in any efforts to put down revolution. Other Labour members in Johannesburg also repudiate the resolution.

It is reported in .Pretoria that the conference between the Premier and the Industrial Federation has been broken off, and that !no agreement has been reached. ;