SURVEY OF RESOURCES IN SOUTH AFRICA

Southland Times, Issue 23953, 20 October 1939, Page 8

SURVEY OF RESOURCES IN SOUTH AFRICA

MEETING HOME AND ALLIED NEEDS

PRETORIA, October 18. A nation-wide survey of South. Africa’s industrial and mineral resources with a view to meeting home and Allied needs was announced by the Prime Minister of South Africa (General J. C. Smuts). Addressing a special convention of the Federated Chamber of Industries, General Smuts said: “Things are working out much better than we thought they would before the war broke out.” The Union’s difficulties would have been increased a hundredfold had Parliament not adopted “the dual choice of interest and duty.” It was easy to realize what the Union’s position would have been without the protection of the British Navy. South Africa had to make up for lost time and for her neglected duty to organize man-power to meet emergencies. General Smuts described the cash-and-carry clause in the United States Congress amendment to the Neutrality Act as a danger, because the United States’ assistance might be most important for the supply of machinery necessary for the Union’s industrial development. “If American ,ships cannot carry American goods to South Africa, let alone New Zealand, Australia and Canada, Americans will suffer as well as the Dominion,” he said. He had made representations to the United States Government, expressing the hope that the Neutrality Bill would be so framed as to remove this danger.

General Smuts appealed to employers not to discharge men. The Government would form armies, making great demands on man-power, for which reason employers should in the meantime retain their staffs. “This war will shake the world’s foundations. You can see how warily the democratic Powers are acting in their attacks against Germany. You can sense the feeling of the fate behind it all. You can realize that the Powers are afraid in a way to come to grips because they know that no one can foresee the result,” he said. POPE’S WISH FOR GENERAL PEACE VATICAN CITY, October 18. The Pope, receiving the Lithuanian Minister, expressed his wishes for the establishment of general peace according to the principles of justice. His Holiness said: “We will not intervene unless requested to do so in purely temporal controversies but duty does not permit us to close our eyes when the sinister shadow of God’s enemies is menacingly cast across Europe.”