THE FRIENDLY PRINCE

Evening Star, Issue 19019, 14 August 1925, Page 1

THE FRIENDLY PRINCE

RESULT OF AFRICAN TOUR UNKING UP WHITE RAGES [By G. Wabd Phice,] CAPS COLONY, June 30. It him proved fortunate, after all, that the Prince of Wales’s visit to South Africa did not take place, as originally arranged, last year, when General Smuts and the South African Party wore in power. There can bo no doubt that the great purpose ot Iris tour—the promotion of Imperial unity —ha* been greatly advanced by tho fact that he is here as the guest of General Hertzog apd the Nationalists. Ceremonies and festivities, in which people of both races now join cordially and without constraint, would, with tho Nationalists in Parliamentary Opposition, have been inevitably denounced 1 as “flag-wagging-” and an assertion of the Imperial tie offensive to the spirit of the Dutch race. To tho Nationalist leaders themselves the arrival of tho Prinoo has been most- opportune. It has enabled them, under a pretext, of extending official hospitality, io retire with dignity from tho aggressively anti-British position which some of them, in tho heat of electoral struggles, had taken up. EXPRESSIONS OP . LOYALTY.

Tire vision of an independent Dutch-South African Republic wins votes from Boers of the back veldt, hut becomes dim as soon as those who called it up find themselves in dhurge of tho Government of tho Union. The emphatic expressions of loyalty lev the British Crown which the Prinoo is receiving not only in the large towns, but at every wayside village where ho halts, will make U. impossible, until an entirely new conjunction of circumstances has arisen, for any politician to revive Republicanism as a posiuve issue. The Prince’s democratic bearing has pleased the South African Dutch. But what has impressed them even more is his obviously uimssumcd inability to detect any difference between them arid the South Afncrne of British origin. -Since tho Union the Dutch have nursed the imaginary grievance that they were despised by the rest of the Empire as a captive population breught within its borders by defeat. The Bunco's friendly attil.udo towards them, end especially towards their language, the treasured badge of their race, has aroused them to the sudden realisation that, in this respect, they have been suffering from the common malady of persecution mania, JICTUA L TOLER A TION. Amalgamation between the British arid Dutch raced In South Africa will probably never be complete, any more than it is complete between the •English and the Soots. Tho parallel is a close one. There is the came close Agree of cnpetlWial resemblance, which only makes more sinkleg the profound temperamental differences that tic beneath it. But. strong forces urn at work to bring, about mutual toleration and co-operation between tho two while races of 3onlh Africa. For if they no nos combine lo strengthen their grip upon iho fair inheritance which, by such different ways, lias come into their Joint possession, it may soon be a “white South Africa" no longer. At niesant, in al>oiit. equal proportions, they nriko up -a population oi ono and a-hajf million blacks. In fifty years, at present rates of increase, the whiter, may have tripled, but Iho blacks will have increased and the eolation wd be' four and a-half million* ami twonty-i-wo miliums.

Since the war, moreover, a new tendency of consolidation has manifested itecdl among the native population of South Africa. Previously they w<jio split into mutually hostile tribal areas. -Vow the idea of their unity us momlmrs of the Bantu race i« rtcndily spreading among them, and, their attachment to local chiefs declines, THE ECONOMIC DANGER.

•Into this mass of primitive population the doctriens of aggressive Comrmmism are being steadily injected, uud t.mall native outbreaks, hitherto quite local, m different parts of the Union are causing already grave anxiety to those responsible for public order. The formidabibly of tho native as a possible military danger is increased by the) steady training ot (.he black to arms carried on throughout Iho vast territories of French Equatorial Africa.

But the economic danger Is even morn pressing. South Africa, an ideal gounl ly for tho settlement of the surplus populations of Europe, can never offer them a market for their labor and ekill alone while the black, with his cheaper competition based on a. far lower standard of living, is available instead.

To combat this difficulty in the path of developing South Africa by European stork two schemes are before the country. One is in limit, by the Color Bur Bill, tho npplication of black labor to the lower (fades of industry, reserving by compulsion ail skilled occupations for the white*. Tho other is bring initiated by the new Wages Board, and consists of fixing minimum rates of pay in every grade, so that tho higher skill of the white may obtain a preference for,, him over his black competitor.