AREA IN AFRICA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23319, 12 April 1939, Page 13

AREA IN AFRICA

gebmahto ambitions ATTITUDE DF THE UNION-*.. " MUST FIGHT FOR IT" DESCRIPTION OF TERRITORY "I think I can say that the feeling of the Union is "hat if Germany wants her former territory of South-Werjt Africa she must fight for it," said Mr. H. Botha Reid, Master of the Supreme Court, Capetown, yesterday. Mr. Re-id, who is. travelling by the Monarch, said it was commonly felt in South Africa that if Germany regained South-West Africa the end of the Union would be at hand, for hostile Germany so near the Unio:a would be a considerable threat.

Mr. Reid described South-Went Africa as it was to-day. The whole of the southern portion was very arid. What had made it was the discovery of diamonds inland from Luderitz Bay, Kolman's Kop and Elizabeth Bay. This discovery maintained the territory for some time, but it suffered a severfij>setback when the slump in diamonds took place.

North of Windhoek, the capital, which was situated at 7000 ft., the territory was covered with bush and was eminently suitable to ranching purposes. The northern territory of Grootfontein had valuable copper deposits which had been worked by the Germans before the Great War. North of Ludcritz Bay lay Walvis Bay which, with its immediate hinterland, had belonged to the Union of South Africa until the outbreak .of war. It offered the only safe harbour along the whole coast. The Germans had not done much colonisation and at the outbreak of war the military force was certainly larger than the total "number of German settlers. To-day the German , element did not appear to be kindly disposed toward the holder of the mandate, although numbers of them had become naturalised. There was also in the territory thai! union element. They were easily the largest in numbers and had made repeated attempts, in view of the recalcitrant attitude of the Germans, to get the Union Government to take over the territory as a fifth province. This element consisted of Dutch-speakiug Afrikaanders and British people, who were united in their desire that the territory should come under the trol of the Union.