THE WAR ISSUE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 67, 16 September 1936, Page 19

THE WAR ISSUE

BRITAIN AND AFRICA

ATTITUDE OF MR. PIROW

NEUTRALITY TREND

All the big constitutional issues which were the bones of contention between the English and the Dutch in South Africa have disappeared, writes Captain H. C. Armstrong in the "Daily Telegraph." The South Africa flag which flies over all Government buildings incorporates • the Union Jack as well as the local colours. English and Afrikaans have been made the joint official languages. ■ •

Talk of secession and a republic has been relegated to a row diehards, and that partly because the whole structure of the Empire has changed and South Africa has established that it is an independent and self-governing unit within the British Commonwealth of Free Nations. The other 'reason is that English-born and Dutch-born have begun to realise, despite old quarrels, that they are both citizens of South Africa, and, though often rivals, yet partners in one cquntry. In my travels all over South Africa in the last few months I have noticed how Dutch and English alike speak with the same pride of South Africa as their country—a pride so intense that the smallest criticism of any imperfection rouses either of them to a fury of denunciation of the outsider— whether from England or anywhere else—who dares to voice it. ONE PROBLEM REMAINS. In South Africa, out of the discords and the travail of the past, out of the quarrels of two proud people, a nation is being born which sees the advantages of continuing and Wishes to continue within the Empire.

One Imperial problem remains, one that is as vital for the world as for the Commonwealth.

That is the position of South Africa in the new defence system of the Empire and the part South Africa is prepared to take in any war in which the Empire may be engaged. This is the subject which brought Mr. Oswald Pirow, South Africa's Minister of Defence, to London for discussions with the British Government, in which other Dominion representatives will join.

Mr. Oswald Pirow is fully aware of the advantages for South Africa in remaining within the.Empire, and, in my view, stands out as the most capable and most forceful man in the Union today.

Short and thick-set, with wide forehead and glasses, Pirow is in the forties —of German extraction, and speaking German fluently.

He is, in fact, a compact, bristling figure, somewhat pugnacious in his outlook and manner, a thrusting, energetic man with a downright way with him and determined views. He tackles his work with complete confidence in himself and with the thoroughness and the drive of a German, so that at times he grows irritated at the easy, haphazard ways of the people of South Africa, who live in the sun and in the pleasant, easy habits of that land. TREMENDOUSLY STRONG. Physically.- he is -tremendously strong and healthy—and without health few men have become great. At best ill health has been a burden which a few great souls have used their best energies in carrying and yet had enough left to succeed. He delights in athletics, boxing, and wrestling—he has a wrestler's body—and if there is nothing .else available he walks several miles'to,his,office; even on hot summer mornings when the air of the Cape is languid and relaxing. As a hobby he goes to a farm and helps to break in the horses.

He has shot up into the limelight only quite lately, and he is not tied to the old rivalries of the English and the Dutch nor to the traditional quarrels which so obsess the older politicians, who were all in their prime in the Boer War and cannot forget it.

We sat on one occasion in the tearoom of the House of Assembly, and he was as forceful and direct 'as usual.

"You are credited with being proGerman, as opposed to pro-British, and believing that the future rests with Germany rather than the British Empire. You went, I believe, to Germany, were made much of, and were duly impressed?" I asked.

"South Africa and the British Empire," he replied, "have 99 9-10ths of their interest in common today, so we stand together. If in the future our interests were not in common I would not agree to South Africa sacrificing herself, nor would I expect England to do so."

"From some of your speeches I deduce," I continued, "that you resent the British Navy retaining a naval base in Simonstown. Were you in power should we in England have to count on a hostile South Africa behind our naval base here? If so, it would be better if we faced the fact and went to Mauritius." "IDEAS QUITE WRONG." "Your deductions and ideas are quite wrong. I do not resent the British Fleet in Simonstown. The whole sti-a--tegy of the Empire has changed. Cape Town is now once more the half-way house to the East and to Singapore. We have an agreement with the British Government for a naval base at Simonstown. I shall work to keep that agreement not only in the letter but in the spirit.

"I consider the British Admiralty are wrong to keep only a small ship there. It can have no strategical value. Only a battleship could have that. If it is for moral effect then I believe that aeroplanes circling over land would have far more effect than a ship at sea.

"As to a hostile South Africa that is unthinkable. We should have to have a civil war here before that."

"And in case of a great war. Would you remain neutral?" I asked.

"Tell me first," he replied, side-step-ping the question, for every Englishman and Dutchman in South Africa was asking the same—it was at the end of April—"tell me first with whom and against whom England will be fighting." ■'■ ■ ' '■ ' •

• Firow is brisk, shrewd, and practical, a ; go-getter. As so many Germans and English feel it, despite the Great War, I felt a bond of common mentality and outlook as I talked with him. • A few months ago I made general inquiries in South Africa on the question of the part the country would play in any war in which the Empire might be engaged. "ANY WAR FAR AWAY." I found that, though it was clear that many Dutch as well as English would volunteer for such a war, yet, whether they were members of the Parliament then sitting in Cape Town, | or Dutch farmers and their wives in : the Karoo or a thousand miles further ! north beyond Pretoria, or Englishmen in the Cape, in Johannesburg or Durban,, they one and all had the same ideas —any war would be far away ivi Europe or the East, and at such an immense distance from them that South Africa had best remain neutral, and that such neutrality would be respected.

Both for the Empire and for South Africa this is a perilous attitude —for the Empire because the Mediterranean has become a lake impossible for any nation to control by sea or air, so that Cape Town has once again become half-way house to the East and Singapore. This makes it also the geographical centre of the Empire. Its strategical importance has grown, therefore, immensely.

For South Africa it is equally unsound, for there is no reason to suppose that her neutrality would be respected. If England should be on the winning side South Africa would reap the benefit, but with the loss of her self-esteem: a thing no young nation can afford. If England had to compromise with her enemies then parts of Africa would have to go as payment —for instance, the old German colonies back to Germany—and that is the one thing which enrages every South African, however, die-hard antiBritish he may be, even to consider. If England were smashed and the British Navy destroyed, the Empire would crash and all the nations go out to seize what they could out of the tremendous ruins. LAND OF THE BLESSED. South Africa—although if one believes all its people say one would believe it was cursed with all the plagues—is a land of the blessed, rich and capable of holding a vast population, and almost empty.

They say there that the people are hungry for land. It is the land that is hungry for men.

It has all that the overcrowded nations of Europe and the East desire— gold and land—and they would come not in their hundreds of thousands but in their millions to enjoy it.

They would not come as the English came to the Boer War, to maintain a nominal suzerainty, but to own and to colonise the land acre by acre, with men and women used to pcor soil, hard work, and the competition of Europe. They would breed large families, and would not be ashamed to do the work now done by natives and which the whites despise.

Capable, hardy, and thrifty workers, they would live on very little, so that they would absorb or destroy the present inhabitants, and the handful of white people in South Africa, some million and three-quarters in all, would be too puny and helpless, without the combined strength of the Empire behind them, to resist. . But my conclusions are that, given time, and not used by politicians unscrupulously for their own selfish ends, the English and Dutch of South Africa will weld into one nation, and that nation will be Imperial-minded, in the modern sense. It will realise, in time, that its interests and strength lie not in isolation but in co-operation with the other members of the British Commonwealth of Free Nations.

The Duke of Portland has accepted the presidency of the Wren Society, in succession to the late Lord Balfour. The position is peculiarly appropriate, because the well-known early portrait of Sir Christopher Wren, by Gascar, is at Welbeck Abbey, and from the estate came some of the great timbers used in building St. Paul's Cathedral.