SOUTH AFRICA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 5422, 2 August 1906, Page 1

SOUTH AFRICA.

LONDON, July 30. Mr B. K. Wise, formerly AttorneyGone cal of Now South Wales, in a letter to the Times, appeals to the House of Commons to consider the constitution for the Transvaal ngd Orange River Colony as affecting 'the whole Empire. Every year Canada Australia, and South Africa were drawing nearer together, were more mutually dependent, and the dream of closer union had already fired the imagination of their peoples ; but the obvious condition of any political union was similarity of civilisation and sympathy in political ideals. There could be no such similarity between the progressive democracies of Australia and Canada arid the narrowminded predicants and unread farmers, who, if the Transvaal were handed back to the Dutch, would, with n live years, rule in South Africa. If we (believed that British rule was more conducive to personal freedom and'social justice than any other nation’s, it would be a crime against the Empire and humanity to hand the Government over to a race so undeveloped ns the Boers. It should bo remembered that such liberal statesmen as Lord Durham and the first Lord Elgin in giving the Canadians self-gov-ernment, made British supremacy the paramount consideration. Tho Boor, like, the Ereneh-Cnnndian, could become loyal and British, but the trans. formation required time and patience and administration according to the spirit instead of the letter of Dio liberal doctrine. Geographically South Africa was the keystone of tho Imperial arch. Never since the Stamp Duty which lost us America, had proposals been submitted to Parliament more fraught with danger to the fabric of our union than those relating to tho constitution of the Transvaal and the Orange Colony. The peace of •the world depended on Parliament’s decision. The Times describes the letter as a striking and s’fgnWicngt empha(?iiß of the narrowness 'of the margin on winch vital issues hang.