SOUTH-WEST AFRICA

Southland Times, Issue 19256, 21 June 1921, Page 5

SOUTH-WEST AFRICA

THE UNION’S MANDATE VIRTUAL ANNEXATION (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) CAPETOWN, June 18. The Assembly is discussing the mandate over the South-West protectorate. General Hertzog said the report of the Commission gave the impression that the mandate was nothing more nor less than annexation, which he denounced as a scandalous international fraud, to which he would never consent. Asked if the Germans had a right to refuse to become citizens of the South African Union the Acting-Premier explained that the inhabitants were no longer German subjects under the Treaty, and no longer citizens of any nation. They could not become citizens jf the Union except at their own request. The Government had no intention of using compulsion.

The Minister of Justice explained that the mandate made it quite clear that the German possessions had been surrendered to the Allied and Associated Powers, and not to the League of Nations. The Powers had the absolute right to repatriate every German subject. They had no status under the Treaty. Nowhere in the Treaty was it contemplated to give them the right of selfdetermination. He admitted that there was not much difference between those provisions and annexation for practical purposes.