THE SOUTH AFRICAN FLAG.

Evening Star, Issue 19559, 18 May 1927, Page 6

THE SOUTH AFRICAN FLAG.

Gf.xef,al Hertzog’s Flag Bill has been passed through the South African Assembly. Presumably it will be soon passed hy the Senate. But it is a poor triumph for the Nationalist Prime Minister which antagonises all the British element in South Africa,_ and promises to create a flag which will be much less an emblem of national unity than a cause of division. Once more crowded meetings are being held in Cape Town and Durban to protest against a flag which includes no reminder of the Union Jack. It was hoped, when Genera! Hertzog returned tilled with delight with the results of the Imperial Conference and the secession issue was buried five months ago, th. t a new era of co-operation and confidence between the races was at hand for South Africa, and that this Bill would he dropped. Probably the Prime Minister would have been glad to drop it. But that did not suit the book of certain of his supporters, and the enemies of unity have prevailed. The issue, which has been going on for two years now in its latest stage, has provoked the strongest feelings at every turn. What the Bill proposes is a rew flag, in which neither the Union Jack nor the old flag of the Transvaal would be included. The Union Jack would be flown side by side with it, it is stated, on Imperial occasions. General Smuts would unite both emblems. The British section has been particularly insistent that the Union Jack must be commemorated, and it has regarded all proposals from the Government side as inspired by the malignant object of getting rid of, or at least subordinating, that revered symbol. When a storm of opposition was provoked by the appearance of the Bill last session, General Hertzog was moved to

offer some concessions. His first suggestion was that the Royal I" nidard might bo incorporated in tho national emblem, but that was found impracticable, the Royal Standard being e King’s personal flag. It was hoped till recently that a compromise might ho reached through the joint meetings rf a Government Commission, which opposed tho Union Jack, and a British committee, but after several conferences had been held it was reported that no agreement could bo arrived ».t. So the Bill which caused such resentment during two previous sessions has now been passed through the House. Little doubt seems to be felt that it would not have appeared there for the third time if either General Herfczog or Mr Tielman Boos. Minister of Justice, could have had his way. Dr Malan, Minister of the Interior, however, has been a zealot for the Bill, and for General Hertzog to have dropped it, it is 6tated t would have meant Dr Malan’s resignation from his party. The whirligig of time would then, indeed, have brought its revenges, for it was on a like issue that General Hortzog himself resigned from General Botha's Government to become a thorn in its side. He could not afford that that example should be repeated, to his own disadvantage, for a cause in which all the most reactionary of his Dutch supporters would have been behind Dr Malan. It is surmised also that Colonel Creswell, Minister of Defence and Leader of the Labor Party, which is allied with the Nationalists, threw his influence on the side of the Boer extremists. With secession no longer an issue, and the Flag Bill out of the way, there would be little except past memories to divide the Nationalist and South African Parties. Already there have been forecasts of a combination between them, by which Labor would be relegated to political exile. That is a fate which it has some cause to fear from its support of the Flag Bill. In the elections for the Provincial Councils, contested in February, the Laborites [suffered severely, losing ten seats to the South African Party and being practically wiped out in Natal. Those reverses were directly attributed to their party’s support of tho flag measure, which may cost them more at the next Onion elections. For the Labor Party it has been a choice of risks.