SOUTH AFRICA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9522, 21 April 1909, Page 2

SOUTH AFRICA.

THE UNIFICATION QUESTION. THE MOZAMBIQUE AGREEMENT. United Press Association — By Electrio Telegraph— Copyright. (Received April 21, 8.45 1 a.m.) DURBAN, April 20. In the Legislative Assembly . at Pietermaritzburg a Bill was read a second time providing for a referendum as to whether Natal should enter the Union. A meeting in the Town Hall, Durban, urged that no further steps in the matter of union should be taken until the Mozambique agreement had been abrogated or modified. (Referring to the Mozambique agreement recently, the "Cape Times " said that there seemed to be a great deal of misunderstanding regarding the agreement between the Transvaal and Mozambique, a purely provincial plan for safeguarding the mutual trad© and j labour interests of the British colony and the Portuguese province being magnified by rumour into a project for acquiring Delagoa Bay for Great Britain. ' The idea was simply to devise a compact which shall take the place of the # famous modus vivendi, and with this view an. arrangement has been made for a period of ten years, J the main objects of which are to facilitate j exports -and imports via Delagoa Bay, ! and collaterally to secure the labour supply from Mozambique for the Transvaal mines. To this end the agreement provides that when union conies about m British South Africa, not less than 50 per cent of the imports shall come through Delagoa Bay ; and, as regards exports, that the Lorenzo Marquez Railway shall not be less*- favourably treated than other lines to coastal ports. To ; carry out these arrangements . a joint Board of four will ' be constituted, consisting of two members appointed by the Transvaal and two by the Mozambique Government, ■ the Board to sit in Delagoa. Bay, and the chairman to be one of -the Portuguese Commissioners.. It is also provided that if fresh capital is wanted for tho extension of the Delagoa Bay Railway or harbour, no such expenditure shall be undertaken: until the proposals have been considered by the ' joint Board. This arrangement is not one which the British coastal colonies are -likely to regard with much favour,, and in the long run a British South African Union Parliament must be supreme here ,as elsewhere; but in the meanwhile the Transvaal believes its labour supply would be endangered if it entered union without a ten-year security of this I kind.) - -