SECESSION ISSUE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 140, 18 May 1925, Page 5

SECESSION ISSUE

AFRICAN NATIONALISTS.

DESIRE FOR INDEPENDENCE.

(By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.)

Rereived May 18, 10 a.m. CAPETOWN, May 17. The Nationalist organ, Ons Vaderland, referring to General Hertzog’s statement, in the Assembly on April 28 regarding secession, says: “It was not necessity to break the promise given to the Labourites when the pact between the two parties was mode not to raise the secession issue for five years. ’’ The pap>er points out that the Nationalist struggle has always been for the realisation of the ideal of absolute sovereign ir dependence. It eees “no reason to describe Britain as ‘our greatest enemy,’ but does not see why she should be referred to ns ‘our best friend,’ a phraso which causes pain to thousands of Afrikanders, to whom England remains the conqueror of our nationhood and our sovereign independence. We wish to regain that independence and wo do not propose hid ng our purpose.—A. and N.Z. cable.

During tho Budget debate in the Assembly General Hertzog made an important declaration )n the secession Question. He said that personally ho thought so far as the Union of South Africa was concerned secession wculd bo a flagrant mistake and be a national disaster if caused by one section, either British or Dutch, imposing its will on t’lo other. He did not fear that secession wculd arise so long as each section refrained from asserting its superiority or domi nine© over the other. General Hertzog urged that no attempt should be made by either section to use the British connection to establish such superiority.