SOUTH AFRICAN UNION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 4 September 1934, Page 9

SOUTH AFRICAN UNION

OBLIGATIONS SACRED GENERAL SMUTS’ PRINCIPLES

CAPETOWN, 23rd August. The fusion of the South African and Nationalist Parties, the former led by | General Smuts and the latter by General Hertzog, was agreed to by tne former to-day at a national congress by 460 votes to eight. South Africa, General Smuts said, would always carry out its obligations under the Covenant of the League, but those obligations were a remote contingency. If a great war should arise in the future, it might possibly be as a result of the Locarno Pact under which Britain undertook obligations guaranteeing tihe frontiers oi France, Belgium and Germany, but the British Government had inserted a provision stipulating that the treaty did not impose any obligations upon the British Dominions without their consent.

I The Congress has been a personal triumph for General Smuts, who declared that the issue of secession from the Empire was dead. Mr Hofmevr, Minister of the Interior, said it was because of the -vital spirit of liberty in the British Empire that lie, who was without a drop of English blood in his veins, was proud and happy to belong to the British Empire.