FULL INDEPENDENCE,

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18166, 3 November 1930, Page 5

FULL INDEPENDENCE,

IRELAND' & SOUTH AFRICA. : Sfe. HERTZOG IN DUBLIN. THE COMMONWEALTH OF NATION? United Press Assn.~-£lec. Tel. Copyright, (Received Nov. 3, 12.15 p.m.), * LONDON, Nov. 2. General Hertzog on his first visit to Ireland was the guest at an official banquet in Dublin. Mr Cosgrave said that Ireland. and South Africa had stood out even to the death against attempts to break their national independence and both had emerged from the fire of war with their spirits unbroken and national consciousness unimpaired. Happily, the old emnities and hatreds had faded in the light of clearer understanding and they had become free associates in a Commonwealth of nations unique in the world’s history. General Hertzog said he regarded their freedom and independence absolutely real in every respect. If it were not he would not consent to remain in the association for a single day. He added: “The declaration of 1926 is a declaration of the full free and independent status of the members of the Commonwealth, and it is upon that assumption alone I have called upon my countrymen to wort in future for co-operation • with the members thereof.

“ There is one thing to which South Africa responded; that is, we are, and ever shall be, in every respect a free and independent country, whose obligations rest upon another basis but a basis of free voluntary agreement. Up to 1926 we viewed everything prefixed with ‘lmperial’ as sinister, hut from 1926, the angle of peace-'' has triumphed.”