ACCLAIMED AS PRIME MINISTER.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 23 June 1924, Page 9

ACCLAIMED AS PRIME MINISTER.

Result of African Elections. BIG MAJORITY FOR THE PACT. By Cable—Press Association —Copyright. CAPETOWN, June 20. It is now certain that the Pact majority will bo 29. The few remaining seats cannot affect the result. The Nationalists will be the largest Party with 63, South African Party 53, Labour 18, Independent 1.. At the time of the dissolution the South African Party numbered 71. At a big Pact demonstration at Bloemfontein, General Hertzog was welcomed by Mr Barlow (Labourite) as the future Premier of the Union, amidst great enthusiasm. General Hertzog, replying, thanked the English-speaking supporters of the Pact. He said it would be his sacred endeavour that they should live to gether as one united people. An analysis of the election statistics reveals that the South African Party polled 150,000 votes against 169,000 for the Pact. Thus, while the Nationalists will 'be the strongest individual party in the new House, the South African Party is the individual party which polled most votes in the Union as a whole.

Returns for 127 contested seats shov that the South African Party polled 36,000 votes more than the Nationalists, yet hold eight fewer seats. The Pact strength lies in the Transvaal, Free State and North-West Cape. The South- African Party strongholds are the Eastern Province, the Cape Peninsula and Natal.

PROSPECTS OF COALITION. NOT FAVOURED BY LABOUR. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. ' ■ Received 5.Si p.m., June 22. CAPETOWN, June 20. The Pact majority, is twenty-nine. Many members of the Labour rank and file are opposed to the Labourites joining the Hertzog Cabinet, as it is contrary .to the Party’s cardinal principles. A Labour Conference will be held on 29th to decide the matter.

GENERAL HERTZOG RETICENT.

SECESSION ISSUE ABANDONED,

By Cable—Press Association—-Copyright. Received 5.30 p.m., June 22. - CAPETOWN, June 21. , General Hertzog, in an interview, was reticent whether he intended to take Labour into the Cabinet, but frankly admitted he was unable to carry en without Labour’s support. He claimed the result of the election was undoubtedly a verdict for the Pact, and attributed his success to the people being desirous of a change of Government. The Pact was now ended, but the country expected the Labour-Nationalist parties to continue co-operated. Asked if he was prepared to repeat the assurance that the Nationalists would stand by their pledge to make no effort to change the constitutional relations with Britain, as provided in the Act of Union, General Hertzog declared the Nationalists, without exception, were prepared to stand by their policy, and added: “I say positively that the Nationalists do not look upon secession as a matter of practical politics, and are not likely to do so till the bulk of the people especially the mass of British feeling, is in its favour. The question has never been a Nationalist party question at all. It has been raised by General Smuts deliberately to frighten the English-speaking community. It is due, in no small measure, to the fact that the people refused any longer to be frightened by the bogey, that the followers oi the Labour party, and others had so heartily supported the Nationalists. I hope the secession bogey has now been definitely' laid, and with it tho cry of Racialism. The Pact has scotched it.”'