THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1910. THE CONTROL OF SOUTH AFRICA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10018, 14 April 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1910. THE CONTROL OF SOUTH AFRICA.

The failure to arrange a Cbalition Ministry to take charge of the affairs J of United South Africa raises the piquant question—Who shall control South Africa? Dr Jameson declares that South Africa wants "a 'bestmen Government,' irrespective of party or race." He asserts that General Botha, Mr Merriman, and himself can on every South African question sign the same manifesto. "Party division is," he says, "only discernable in the abominable racial question. There is no danger," he adds, "of party Government disappearing." Mr Merriman, the Cape Premier, however, says that "the idea of a coalition could have been hatched only in Throgmorton Street. My idea of a Progressive ~is," he says, "a man who is fond ot borrowing money, wants to imitate j Australia, and has one eye on South Africa and one eye on the English i

Stock Exchange." The "Nation" points out that "No responsible leader of the dominant party in the Cape, the TiansvaaJ, or the Orange Free State gave any countenance to the notion of a coalition in which the responsibilities and, we may add, the apoils, of office should be shared among the two groups of politicians who in their several States had been opposing one another all their lives. as Mr Merri-

man pointed out, so far as coalition implied dispensing with the twoparty system, upon which the British Parliamentary system has always thriven, it would enfeeble and endanger politics by removing the only effective engine or criticism. If all the great, wise, and eminent men in South Africa were packed into office in the Union Government, is it not likely that their authority would ;be used to lull the popular mind to a security and apathy which would endanger the Common wealth? That the politicians of the beaten party in the Cape and the Transvaal should have fostered the notion of erasing the existing party lines by trading on the new fervour of nationalisation, is vieux jeu in politics. So it was natural enoJ£»h that Dr Jameson and his financial colleagues in Johan nesburg should have sought to put upon the public mind in South Africa and in this country this idea of a coalition Government which should secure for them by amicable agreement what they could not hops to attain by success at the pollf. There is, indeed, a working measure of genuine goodwill between the white races in South Africa, but that it should have been so strengthened by the events of the last twelve years

as to erase a!) memories of past antagonism, and to reconcile all those differences of material interest and mental valuation which exist between the races, is no other than a paradox It is far better and safer to face the stubborn facts which underlie South African politics. The Dutch and the British are still widely sundered by the social and industrial conditions of their lives. The strength of the former lies in agriculture and their widespread hold upon the land, the latter are mostly i town dwellers, engaged in commercial, industrial, and mining enterprise, mora concentrated and more mobile in their residence. Growing

social intercourse, with accompanying inter-marriageH, the most solid basis of cannot be expected to achieve rapid results, unless larger numbers of British settlers en be drawn into rural life in the Transvaal and Orangia. This remedy has hitherto proved impracticable. It is therefore best to recognise that, for same time to come, the party government for South African politics will run along the familiar lines of racial and economic distribution. It must never be forgotten," concludes the "Nation," "that the most salient fact in South African civilisation is the concentration of national wealth in a few small spots of earth. The possession and working of these national treasures by little cosmopol itan groups of able business men, who must find it necessary constantly to intrevene in national politics, will inevitably, as time goes on, give increased prominence in South Africa to those problems of capitalism and labour, wealth and commonwealth, which tend in all advanced industrial nations of the world to swallow up the older and the minor issues." In reference to the article which we have quoted, it is interesting to recall that quite recently Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson. at the Colonial Institute, stated that the Boers are not only much keener politicians than the average Briton, but they are in an actual majority, in three of the four uniting States.