GENERAL HERTZOG EXPLAINS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19511, 15 December 1926, Page 12

GENERAL HERTZOG EXPLAINS.

To say that General Hertzog has returned to South Africa from the Imperial Conference a changed man may be hazardous; but there can be no doubt that immediately on his arrival he has supplied reasons for a change that others may see, or think they see, in him. Before the conference he was a very aggressive advocate for South African autonomy, occasionally qualifying his position with mild assurances that secession might not be necessary. Now he talks of "a united Empire" as to the manner bom, with sundry cryptic allusions to South Africa's freedom to shape some things as she will. What he really means is not easy to discover, but probably he is preparing South Africa for an alteration in emphasis in his policy. He lauds the constitutional decisions of the conference, and utters his allegiance to the Empire as he now views it. That is well. But his explanation of this new tone in his voice does not really explain it. Things are much as they were before the conference, and as he knew they were. The declaration it has made expresses facts thatj

ought to have been in his knowledge, if they were not, during the period of his vehement espousal of his creed of "South Africa for the South Africans." As to his assertion that "Empire" has hitherto meant the ruthless exercise of Britain's authority over ( the Dominions, it may serve his present purpose to say so, but that meaning has never been reasonably given. There was a day when Downing Street was little inclined to cede rights to oversea British peoples, but that was before the word "Empire" was in British use. It was the time of the "colonies," and only as to India was the word somewhat loosely employed. The Empire so named came in side by side with the conception of oversea freedom and the recognition of the colonies as, in many respects, selfgoverning Dominions. The history of South Africa herself, to look no farther, shows how ill justified is her present Prime Minister's convenient way of putting things. More or less plainly, however, he says that only "in the years to come," presumably beyond his tenure of influence, may it be necessary to think of South Africa's secession; and with that he airily dismisses the topic. Time will perhaps tell precisely what he means. Meanwhile, he is proving that_ the way of politicians is hard, especially when they try to explain away policies found untenable.