UNITY & PROGRESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 January 1940, Page 5

UNITY & PROGRESS

MILITARY PREPARATIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA EXPANSION OF CITIZEN ARMY. SECTIONAL DIFFERENCES SET ASIDE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, January 2. Aii official survey of military preparations in South Africa states that the Union’s new citizen army is making remarkable progress. Reports from town and country in all quarters of South Africa re- , fleet the ■ enthusiasm with which, volunteers are coming forward. A single example is the Botha Regiment, which has risen from a peace time strength of 400 to a wartime strength of more than 900. The formation of another battalion of this regiment is in progress. New units are also being formed in such typically rural areas as Messian, Barberton and Verefiging.

“A spirit of cordial co-operation dominates all activities,” the survey continues. “and any sectional differences have been set aside. Everywhere the fact is appreciated that all are South Africans and complete unity is expressed in the common cause.” The survey points out that the lie is given to Nazi propagandist insinuations that discrimination against Afrikaans-speaking members of the defence force obtains, by the fact that by far the larger number of senior officers permanently serving in South Africa’s army are men bearing Afrikaans' names, and they, like officers bearing English names, are bilingual.

ANXIOUS TO HELP

SOUTH AFRICAN NATIVES. REPRESENTATIVE EXPRESSION OF OPINION. RUGBY, January 2. The anxiety of native peoples to participate in the defence of South Africa was expressed at a recent meeting in Pretoria of the Natives Representative Council, the most important organ of native opinion in the Union. During the meeting one delegate summed up the position as follows: “Since war broke out every African organisation, that has held a meeting has expressed its unswerving devotion to the King and his Government in the Union. An account recently appeared in the Press of how native employees of a big concern in Transvaal have started a fund to buy a warship for Britain, and this, I am convinced, is typical of what people throughout the Union are feeling.”