IN SOUTH AFRICA

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 33, 8 February 1940, Page 12

IN SOUTH AFRICA

THREATS TO DESCENDANTS OF GERMANS

DEFENCE OF UNION

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

(Received February 8, 1 p.m.) CAPE TOWN, February 7. • The.House of Assembly again encased. General Smuts's war policy by a majority of 20 when the Emergency Regulations Bill was read a second a .time. Re.yealing the activities of the Nazi j Auslahder organisation, General Smuts said-that it absorbed the bulk of the money collected in South Africa for the relief of Germans. Descendants of Germans* were compelled to join it, otherwise they were boycotted, and defaulters' relatives in Germany were threatened with confiscation of their property and imprisonment. The organisation possessed a secret newspapfer and also an arbitrator who usurped the jurisdiction of the regular Courts. The Government, operating on a list of the Nazi membership, had expelled and interned, or would intern, all who were included in it.

The Government had'taken over the regulations from the former Minister of Defence, Mr. Pirow, who had planned martial law against his British,, fellow citizens.

Nobody, the Prime Minister said, would be commandeered to assist countries in the far north, but Kenya and Tanganyika would not be left in the lurch. South Africa, which would soon have its own fleet, could not always rely on the British Navy. Meanwhile, aeroplane and mechanical transport had altered the situation, and the Union must defend itself far from its borders.' The Union was not immediately endangered. Its defence force consisted of 50,000, while adequate numbers of volunteers were available. Only the latter would in the event of necessity leave South Africa.