CENTURIES OUT OF DATE

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 28 May 1932, Page 14

CENTURIES OUT OF DATE

TITR. BERNARD SHAW, who returned on April 5 to England from South Africa, where he had been spending a holiday, says he has discovered that the Afrikanders are still in the seventeenth century.

“I was rather surprised,” Mr iShaw said in an interview, “when I got to South Africa to discover that there is a very lively racial feud going on there. They do not seem to know that tho South African War is over; in fact, they are prosecuting it with the greatest possible vigour. “They aTe not shooting each other, but they are doing what they can to one. another short of that.

“Apparently when 1 an Afrikander Government gets in an Englishman-has no chance of any public job. I presume that when the other party, which calls itself the South African Party, gets in, the Afrikander has no chance of a job. Tt completely astonished me. I imagine that tho Afrikanders are looking forward to a time 20 years hence when there will not be any Englishmen left in 'South Africa, and the English are looking forward to the time when there will not be any Dutch left in South Africa. The fact is they have nothing apparently to do but to amuse themselves a little with all this.

“'The Dutch are a very remarkablo people. They are very productive physically, and they are quite up to the mark mentally. They look like the ideal people to colonise South Africa, but they are in the seventeenth century absolutely. The only event that has happened since the seventeenth century that they know anything about is the South African War, and they do not know that that is over. The religious views belong to tho seventeenth century.

“I want to know what is going to be done with these people. They are all splendid human material. A number of missionaries should be sent out to them. I have done what I can myself. They ought to send out Mr H. G. Wells and a few other up-to-date and intelligent

Shaw Talks of Africa and Ireland

people to give the Afrikanders tho information as to what century they are living in, and make them aware they are 200 years out of date. At the same time they are the most charming people you could imagine. “Of course there is the terrible native question, and South Africa is no place for the poor white. The only thing for poor whites, so far as I can see, is the lethal chamber. “The poor white, who has no property, has to compete with a black proletariat and a low standard of living, and I see nothing for whites who are born there without property but to drown them when they are born. There is nothing to be done apparently. ’ ’ Discussing events in Ireland, Mr Shaw said: “The position is very much the same as in South Africa. In Ire-, land they do not know that Dublin Castle no longer exists. The Irish Republican Army thinks that Ireland is still enslaved, and they have to overthrow Dublin Castle. The difficulty is not to get men to take in new ideas, but to throw out the old ones.

“In Ireland they have the old rebellious slave mentality. They are in as strong a position in me Empire as anybody else, but they do not know it and they never will know it. They can go on with their old business of illegal drilling and being against the Government. Mr iCosgrave’s Government went on the old tradition that the Irish people must not be allowed to have weapons. ,

“The only people who had weapons left were gunmen, and the result was that gunmen ruled the roost and life became intolerable. Mr Cosgrave’s Government unfortunately tried to remedy that by giving high military officers tho power to hang or shoot anybody in Ireland they like without trial. That was what it came to and that was the secret of his overthrow.

“What I should have done was tp give all the steady-going population of Ireland a revolver and 12 rounds of ball cartridge and let 'them dispose of tho gunmen. You must trust the people.”