Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1934 SOUTH AFRICA’S LOYALTY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 5 September 1934, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1934 SOUTH AFRICA’S LOYALTY

RECENT political developments in South Africa indicate clearly that the Union is guided by statesmen whose ideals are not only national but imperial, in the best sense of each term —national, in that they desire to fuse the Dutch and British of Soutli Africa into one nation, and imperial in that they desire that then- great country shall remain part of the British Empire. This remarkable development, in a country which was long divided by fierce political dissension, is the work principally of two great men, General Smuts, the leader of the South African Party, and General Hertzog, the leader of the National Party, who, first having formed a Coalition Government, are now bent upon the complete fusion of the parties which they lead. A recent cablegram from Capetown seems to show that the two Generals have been successful in achieving their laudable end. In part it read: 'Die fusion of the South African and Nationalist Parties, the former led by General Smuts, and the latter by General Hertzog, was agreed to by the former to-day at a national congress by 460 votes to eight.

That in itself is a great achievement, but what seems a greater matter still is the fact that General Smuts won “a personal triumph” when, in a speech which evidently aroused the greatest enthusiasm, he declared that the issue of the secession (of South Africa) from the Empire is dead. Perhaps more significant still was that Mr Hofmeyer, Minister of the Interior, whose name indicates his Dutch origin, declared that: It was because of the vital spirit of liberty in the British Empire that he, who was without a drop of English blood in his veins, was proud and happy to belong to the British Empire. To anyone whose memory carries him back thirty-five years to the time of strife when the Boers and the British appealed to force in order to settle their differences, it will appear a wonderful thing that prominent South Africans of Dutch origin (General Smuts is of Boer extraction, and fought valiantly against the British) should to-day come forward as champions of the imperial ideal which cements South Africa and the component parts of the Empire in one political union under the Crown. Surely, it may be declared, if such a complete conversion to unity with the Empire as that of General Smuts and Mr Hofmeyer can be effected, and if the Boer people can harmonise their racial and political ambitions with those of the British, it is possible for nationalists in Ireland and in India to harmonise their racial and political ambitions similarly, under the Crown. No one who remembers the Boer war imagined that such expressions of loyalty as those referred to would ever be uttered spontaneously and wholeheartedly by members of the race wliicu was so severely defeated. Nothing is too remarkable to find record in the pages ot history, and in tho genuine loyalty of the prominent South African statesmen referred to, is revealed the pleasing truth that under the British Crown political miracles are possible. No one who is acquainted with Mr do Valera’s political record, will entertain much hope that in any circumstances he will copy the admirable example of General Smuts and General Hertzog, and lead his followers back by the path of goodwill and political sanity to friendship with the British and loyalty to the King. But political leadership is of time, not of eternity. Mr de Valera’s political course will, in due time, be run, and tliero will arise in tho Irish Free State other political leaders who, like those of South Africa, may review the past with unprejudiced minds and conclude that Britain is not as black as they had painted her, and that security and prosperity within the Empire are preferable to uncertainty and difficulty outside of it. And may not the same ho said of India? Surely South Africa’s example and experience can teach the Indian separatists something. Surely the practical experience of an im-

portant people, such as the Dutch of South Africa, is more convincing than the polemical arguments of Hindu disloyalists. The Boers have proved that Britain is not only indomitable in war, but that; having triumphed, she can be, not merely merciful, but generous; they long since realised that in striving to separate themselves from the British Empire they were their own enemies, because experience has proved that within the Empire their safety and well-being are assured. The moral is self-evident, but will it be applied in Southern Ireland and in India?