MR FOWLDS INTERVIEWED

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 228, 9 January 1911, Page 5

MR FOWLDS INTERVIEWED

HIS VIEWS OX SOUTH AFRICAN AFFAIRS. ENGLISH THE ABIDING TONGUE. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Received !), 12.45 a.m. Sydney, January 8. Mr. Fowlds has arrived at Sydney. Interviewed, he said he had thoroughly enjoyed his visit to South Africa, where he had travelled over six thousand miles by special train. He thinks that New Zealand and Australia have nothing to learn from South Africa as far as the art of Government is concerned. South Africa, he thinks, will never be a white man's country, for the colored people so immensely outnumber the whites. The colored people, he said, were sturdy stock, and they increased very fast; therefore he was not sorry to learn that the Indian Government had prohibited indenturing any more Indians for the sugar plantations of Natal. The news would be very welcome to the Union Parliament, as, with the exception of the sugar planters, everyone was in favor of excluding coolies. He believed that Rhodesia will eventually come into the Union, though for a good many years its people will probably go along on their own lines as a Crown Colony. There was not the slightest doubt that the British and Dutch worked well together, and now that the: Union had been established there was very little bitterness between the two nations. A little feeling was aroused at the election, but it subsided, as everybody had confidence in Mr. Botha. Before many years there would be a general national sentiment. Questions would arise which would make entirely new lines of cleavage in politics, and which would range both English and Dutch on each side. Already this had been indicated. Though there was no Labor party, as understood in Australia, there was the nucleus of such a party, but up to the present the Labor representatives had provincial limitations. He predicted that the outcome of the movement would be the formation of a Federal Labor party. Mr. Fowlds said he was satisfied that English would be the language of the future in the Union.