SOUTH AFRICA

Otago Witness, Issue 3662, 20 May 1924, Page 21

SOUTH AFRICA

TALK OF SECESSION. CAPETOWN, May 14. General Smuts, speaking at Johannesburg, said that if he had stood firm Mr Creswell (Labour) might have killed secession, but he had only left the question in abeyance for a few years, after which it might burst out again. If the undertaking included a pact that secession should not be pressed on the people of the country until the English people were also in favour of it, he (Smuts) would have nothing further to say about secession; but if Mr Creswell and General Hertzog attempted so to amend the pact, Tielman Roos and his commandos would at once secede from the Nationalist Party, because they were out for secession. General Kemp, an ex-rebel, who is generally regarded as Minister of Defence designate in the event of the Nationalists beinjr returned, speaking at Bethel, in the Transvaal, said no principles had been given up in pact, but only a promise not to declare South Africa a Republic within the next five years. Propaganda could be made use ot freely at all times. Asked whether the Nationalists were a secessionist party, General Kemp said they were an idealist party, who could make South Africa independent as soon as a majority declared in favour of such a step. If England refused, she could do as she liked. The Governor-General could not refuse his signature to such an act. If he did they would simply declare themselves independent, and maintain their action with guns if necessary. THE SECESSION QUESTION. CAPETOWN, May 15. The election campaign is warming up, and the secession issue is coming into more prominence. The oft-repeated assertion that the Labourites’ pact killed secession is discounted by a statement made at General Smuts’s R.usenburg meeting, when Piet Brobler, one of the most prominent Nationalist members of Parliament, replying to General Smuts, maintained that under the pact the Nationalists were free to continue propaganda inside and outside Parliament, the only reservation being that they must not take a vote. General Smuts several times repeated the question, but Brobler stoutly maintained that there was fullest liberty for propoganda in or out of Parliament. This statement made a considerable impression, especially among new British' settlers in the district, who had been assured by the Nationalists that secession was a dead issue.