GENESIS OF RAND TROUBLE.

Evening Star, Issue 17925, 22 March 1922, Page 6

GENESIS OF RAND TROUBLE.

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.

CAPE TOWN, March 21, (Received March 22, at noon.)

Representatives of the Press Association, daring their recent visit to the Hand, endeavored to discover the underlying motives of the insurrection. Investigations wore carried out both among the worst ruffians among the prisoners and well-to-do sympathisers with the Labor cause, Dutch inhabitants, lawyers, and financiers of Russian birth. The conclusion arrived at was that Bolshevik propaganda has been openly carried out on the Rand for years past in Dutch and English, headed chiefly by English extremists, who turned the heads of many of the workers, notably among the illiterate miners of Dutch descent. Tho promoters of the upheaval included some Russian Jews, but the great majority were of English birth, with a few Dutch extremists. In the fighting tho Dutch were foremost both as regards leadership and numbers, tho English second, and the Russians a bad third. There were several Dutch lads among the snipers, who considered that it was sport to pick off passers-by. The rank and file apparently Had no clear idea of what object was to be attained. They were told that they must fight to keep out the natives, also for tho worthy object of establishing a republic; and that they would have big support from the country districts. When the burghers marched into tho outskirts of Rononi they were cheered by tho strikers, who believed they had come to their assistance. This military support was expected from tho Free State, which is overwhelmingly republican. The rally of the burghers to the Government came as an immense {surprise to the revolutionaries.—A. and N.Z. Cable;