THE COLOR LINE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16838, 29 December 1928, Page 7

THE COLOR LINE

SOUTH AFRICAN "MENACE" ASSERTION BY A MINISTER "A BIG UNITED WHITE PARTY." CAPETOWN, November 12. Is there a native menace m South Africa'; Some time ago a sensational announcement appeared in an American newspaper suggesting that a series of incidents in the Barberton district of the Transvaal were inspired by a secret vendetta against white authority, and there was reason to believe that Communistic influences were at work among the natives which aimed at the complete overthrow of the present system of government in this country. Approached by the South African representative of the New Zealand Herald to express an opinion on this serious question, the Prime Minister, General Hertzog, in his capacity of Minister of Native Affairs, called' for a special report from the native commissioner in the particular territory concerned. The result was a statement that there were no signs of unrest in the Barberton district in the direction indicated. The only symptoms of unrest among tho natives" of that part of the Transvaal, says the report, are the preachings of the Industrial and Commercial Union—a colored and native .organisation—but so far 'as a secret vendetta is concerned the commissioner has no hesitation in saying that this rumor is entirely unfounded. Since then, however, there lias been the statement by Mr. Tielman Roos, the Minister of Justice, that there actually is a. native menace in South Africa. Speaking in Johannesburg Mr. Roos dealt at length with this matter, and prophesied that the white people of this country would be driven into one united political party to create a bigger and more potent weapon to save South Africa. "NO TIME FOR BOLSHEVISM." "W'hether we as a party win tho next election or not it makes no difference," Mr. Roos said, "we fight for something which must succeed. We fight for tho thing which is at the heart of the nation, tho dearest thing in our national life. The underlying spirit of the nation must be nationalism. It is the strong rock—the one unmoving rock of politics. It is the rock to which we can hold to fight Communism, Bolshevism, and all the other issues which face us." Mr. Roos attacked "the Bolshevist attempt to put new-fangled ideas into the heads of South African natives. Wo in South Africa have no time for Bolshevism," said Mr. Roos. "We do not want disturbing, disruptive ideas in our'native policy. We have, to make South Africa safe for the whites, and anything endangering our safety we must fight. As Nationalists we shall fight to the utmost any attempt to develop the natives on lines which will, endanger the white standard of the Union." The object of the Communists in South Africa, Mr. Roos went on, was to antagonise the natives, and if that policy was successful it meant that the Communists in South Africa were going to do what they always suspected them of wanting to do as a result of their speeches—to stir up the natives of this country by linking up the white and native proletariat. Proletariat was a word they never employed in South Africa, because the white man there was in' every sense of the term an aristocrat—a man who believed in the rule of the best man, and felt that he was one of the ruling class of South Africa. RULERS AND GOVERNORS. "A man of that class cannot be n member of the proletariat, and I deny most emphatically, on behalf of the men who have the same blood in their veins as I have, that they are members of any proletariat of any color whatever. I deny absolutely that any part of the Butch-speaking race of this country belongs to the proletariat. I have so many English friends, too, that I think 1 can make a similar denial on their part. Remember this, that the position of the white people of South Africa is that they are X tilers and governors, and people who are rulers and governors cannot be members of the proletariat. "Therefore wo say this to-day that we will rule the natives in South Africa, we will look after the native interests here, but we will never allow this Moscow dream of a black republic in South Africa to materialise—never to get within a million miles of reality. The activities of the I.C.U. are in no sense trade union activities, but largely political. We are allowing these natives to go about the country insulting everyone. I am in a better position than General Hertzog, because Clements Kadalie apologised 1 to him, but I should regard it. as a most grievous insult if a native apologised to me." There are many white people in South Africa to-day who were afraid of being custodians of a white South Africa, said Mr. Roos. They talked about tho past, and said that "those who wished to make South Africa safe for the white population belonged to the old Boers of the past. The fact was that people to-day were not worthy of being compared with the old Boers. SPIRIT OF THE OLD BOERS. The old Boer*, continued Mr. Roos, would never dream of sitting on the same body -with natives, would never dream of mingling with natives in the same way that many South Africans mingled with them to-day. If the Boers had come into this country with

the feelings that animated the prophets of to-day the South Africans of to-day would not have been a white race. They would have been a colored race. "I want to speak for every section of the Nationalist Party in South Africa," said Mr. Roos, "and say that so far as we are concerned we cannot possibly have any political truck with anybody who shows that he has any feeling or any sympathy with the I.C.U. movement in South Africa. Any reference to the I.C.U. movement is going to close tho ranks of the Nationalist Party more firmly and strongly than ever they have been closed in the past. We. believe that in this we of the Nationalist Party have a safe and sure and enduring foundation to build upon. W 7 e will build upon that foundation, and we will carry the people, not only the Nationalists, we will carry the peoplo of South Africa on that point. "The big united white party is coming whether we want it or not," concluded Mr. Roos. "and one of the things that will drive us whites into a united party is the native menace. For there is a native menace and it would be foolish to denv it."