FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1929. SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20743, 14 June 1929, Page 8

FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1929. SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS.

The cabled reports indicate that the Nationalist Party which has, by virtue of its pact with the Labour Party, held the reins of power in the Union of South Africa for the past five years has met with defeat at the general election this week. This result of the appeal to the country was to some extent foreshadowed within the past few days. A split in the Labour Party was fraught with the possibility of disaster for the Nationalists. It was only' through the support of members of the Labour Party that they possessed a majority in the last Parliament. When, therefore, the Labour Party was disrupted into two sections and the formal pact with the Nationalists was dissolved, the Government, while it retained Labour members in its personnel, was deprived of a prop upon which it relied for its preservation. And the

feeling generated between - the tiro sections of Labour—that which adhered to Mr Creswell, the leader of the formerly united party, who is a member of the Government, and that which has formed itself into a National Council—was so bitter as to lead the National Council to swing right over to the South African Party, the Opposition Party in the past Parliament. The general secretary of the National Council is reported to have said last week that the Labour Party had been “ wrecked and ruined by selfishness and ambition,” It may be inferred that it was because it despaired, in its present broken state, of securing effective Labour representation in the new Parliament, that its allegiance was transferred, in part, to General Smuts, Leader of the South African Party, whom it certainly does not love. Its defection from the Nationalist Party will necessarily have contributed in an appreciable degree to the failure of the Government at the polls. The result is not one which should cause any regret in other parts of the Empire. Under General Hertzog the Government has pursued during its term of office a course so tortuous that its confirmation in power might reasonably have been regarded with a good deal of concern. General Hertzog’s own equivocal utterances respecting Dominion status after his return to South Africa from the last Imperial Conference, the Government’s curious attitude to the flag question, and the conclusion by it of the trade treaty -with Germany'—a treaty which has been described as “a slap in the face for Great Britain ” —are incidents, among others, of the past few years that should, cause the downfall of the Nationalists to be viewed with satisfaction. General Smuts, who may, as Leader of the Opposition, be expected to receive a commission a to form a new Administration, is a distinguished and trusted Imperial figure. His “ brilliancy in so ways has,” as a w r riter in the National Review says, “ received world-wide recognition.” It is even possible that it is more -widely recognised outside South Africa than in it.