NOT ANTI-BRITISH

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21308, 30 March 1939, Page 12

NOT ANTI-BRITISH

SOUTH AFRICAN BOERS By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, March 28 An indignant protest against statements made by a former South African pilot that there was a Nazi element in that Dominion, was made by two South African visitors, Miss Bobbie Pretorius, granddaughter and great-grand-daughter of the famous Boer generals, and Mrs Cecil Thurburn, daughter of the New Zealand war correspondent, Mr G. H. Kingswell, who remained in South Africa after the Boer War. Miss Pretorius vigorously denied that the Boer population was still preponderantly anti-British. “I am of pure Dutch descent, and have every reason to feel resentment against Britain,” she said. “My father’s home was burnt to the ground during the Boer War, his goods were confiscated, and his wife and children were confined in camp. If anyone should have knowledge of any anti-British feeling there it should be me. I harbour no anti-British sentiment, nor do any other Afrikanders ecept those in areas of the Orange Free State and Transvaal, where the settlers are so isolated that the old feeling is retained.”

Miss Pretorius did not deny that there was a “Brown Shirt” movement in South Africa, but declared that it was neither pro-German nor antiBritish. It was, however, anti-Jewish.