SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19205, 23 June 1924, Page 7

SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS

SEAT FOR GENERAL SMUTS. ELECTED MEMBER RESIGNS. Ptmr Association-By Telegraph—-Copyright CAPETOWN, June 20. , Colonel Claassen has resigned the Standerton seat, which General Smuts will contest.—A. and N.Z. Cable. THE VOTING ANALYSED, MINORITY CAST FOR NATIONALISTS CAPETOWN, June 20. It is now certain that the Pact majority will be 29. Tbe few remaining returns cannot affect the result. The Nationalists will be the largest party, with 63 members. The South African Party will have 53. Labour 18, and there will be one Independent. At the time of the dissolution the South African Party numbered 71. At a big Pact' demonstration at Bloemfontein Mr Hertzog was welcomed by Mr Barlow, a Labour member, as the future Prime Minister of the Union, amidst great enthusiasm. Mr Hertzog, in replying, thanked the English-speaking supporters of the Pact. He said that it would be las sacred endeavour that they should live tgoether as one united people. An analysis of the statistics reveals the fact that the South African Party polled 150,000 votes compared with 169,000 for the Pact. Thus, while the Nationalists will be the strongest individual party in the new House, the South African Party is the individual party which polled most votes in the Union. The returns for 127 contested seats show that the South African Party polled 36,000 more votes than the Nationalists, yet they hold eight fewer seats. The Pact’s strength lies in the Transvaal, the Free State, and the north-west of Capo Colony. The South African Party's strongholds are the ©astern provinces of the Cape, the Peninsula, and Natal.—A. and N.Z. and Reuter Cables. MB HERTZOG INTERVIEWED. LABOUR SUPPORT ESSENTIAL. SECESSION ONLY A “BOGEY.” CAPETOWN, June 21. (Received June 22, at 5.5 p.m.) Mr Hertzog, in an interview, was reticent whether ho intended to take Labour into the Cabinet, but he frankly admitted that he would be unable to carry on without Labour support. He claimed that tire result of the election was undoubtedly a verdict for the Pact, and attributed its success to the people being desirous of a change of Government. The Pact had now ended, but the country expected the Labour and Nationalist Parties to continue to co-opcrato. Asked if he were prepared to repeat his assurance that the Nationalists would stand by their pledge to make no effort to change the constitutional relations with Britain as provided for in the Act of Union, Mr' Hertzog declared that the Nationalists without exception were prepared to stand by their pledge, and added: ‘T say positively that the Nationalists do not look upon secession as a matter of practical politics, and they are not likely to do so till the bulk of the people—especially the mass of British feeling—is in its favour. The question has never been a Nationalist Party question at all. It lias been raised by General Smuts deliberately to frighten the Englishspeaking community. It was duo in no small measure to the fact that the people refused any longer to bo frightened ny the bogey that the followers of the Labour Party and others had so heartily supported the Nationalists. 1 hope that the secession bogey has now definitely been laid and with it the cry of racialism. The Pact has scotched it.”—A. and N.Z. Cable. A COALITION GOVERNMENT. OPPOSED BY LABOUR RANK AND FILE. CAPETOWN, Juno 20. (Received June 22, at 5.5 p.m.) The Pact has a majority of 2a. Many members of the Labour rank and file are opposed to the Labourites joining a Hertzog Cabinet as being contrary to the Party’s cardinal principles. A Labour conference' will be held on June 29 to decide the matter. —Reuter.