THE IS SHORT, MALAN SAYS OF ‘APARTHEID’

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 March 1949, Page 5

THE IS SHORT, MALAN SAYS OF ‘APARTHEID’

(Rec. 1 p.m.) CAPE TOWN, March 11

The Prime Minister, Dr Malan, whose Nationalist Party won the majority of "the seats in the voting for the Provincial Councils, declared the Government’s determination to go ahead with its racial segregation policy, on which the elections were fought. Dr Malan said that only by “Apartheid” (racial segregation) could white civilisation be saved, but the time was short.

The overall voting figures in the Provincial Council elections were:— Nationalist Party .. 400,875 United Party . . . . 393,461 Independents . . . . 20,514 Labour Party . . . . 19,719

In the 1943 elections the Nationalists held only 48 seats to the United Party’s 97. In the present elections, the Nationalists almost swept the field in the Orange Free State and cut the United Party’s representation in the Transvaal very considerably. “The Nationalists have clearly failed to achieve an unequivocal mandate to go ahead with their segregational policy,” says the Cape Town correspondent of The Times, London. “They have obtained a Tittle slam’ in the Orange Free State, but were severely beaten, in Natal. “A feature of the results is the consistent reduction of Nationalist majorities in all but a handful of the seats they retained, and United Party successes in key constituencies such as Bredasorp and Hottentots in the Cape Province. “The United Party cannot be said to have scored a victory, but it is a severe defeat for the Nationalists, because their declared aim was a full vote of confidence from the electorate.”