THE SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18170, 15 February 1921, Page 4

THE SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS.

In the words of the Capetown correspondent of The Times, "a great peril has passed" in South Africa. The appeal of General Smuts to " all rigtttminded South Africans, irrespective of party or race, to join a new party which will be strong enough to safe- ' guard the permanent interests of the Union against the disruptive and destructive policy of the National Party" has met with a response that 1 has provided him with a parliamentary majority so large as to ensue absolutely the stability of the Government and to crush the present hopes of the secessionists. ,It has been remarked with gratification and apparently with some surprise that a large vote was given <by working men in support of the policy with 7 which the name of General Smuts is honourably associated. There should b£. no cause for surprise in the fact that members of the industial classes refused to listen to the voice of the extremist who claims that secession from Great Britain and the establishment of a republic constitute the supreme need of South Africa. The more intelligent of the working men throughout the Empire, who form the best elements in their class, have no real sympathy with the policy, either political or industrial, that is advocated and as far as possible enforced by the extremists.;-It may frequently happen that they find themselves carried reluctantly by circumstances over which they have lost control into situations that are by no means to their liking/ They may suffer themselves, from a mistaken sense of class-consciousness, to be used merely as pawns by persons, astute than they, who have edged themselves into offices of'authority from which/ they issue their instructions and their' demands. They are misrepresented, however, when the attempt is made to identify them actively with all sorts of crazy arid blundering declarations in the sacred name of Labour. It is at the ballot-box that they "are able to express their views without hesitation and without the risk of incurring the animosity of fellow-workers, and, as ( we have seen, large numbers of members ? 'of the industrial class in South Africa have been influenced, in/ their -votes by their Opposition to the Kepublican, or National, Party rather than by their loyalty to the Labour Party. *£he result of the elections, giving a signal triumph to the South African Party, undoubtedly furnishes a tribute to the personality of General Smuts. It is also an expression. of. the .political sanity of approximately two-thirds of the electors of the Union.