SOUTH AFRICA.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18874, 18 February 1933, Page 4

SOUTH AFRICA.

Politics in South Africa have taken a somewhat dramatic turn. The problem is currency. The policy of the Hertzog administration was adherence to the gold standard. Force of circumstances, however, was too strong and the Cabinet had to revise its platform, virtually adopting a dual system —on gold externally, off gold internally.

General Smuts, the Leader of the Opposition, has long advocated sterling as the standard, but he was not satisfied with the Government’s decision which he thus described; “They have just taken us off gold and left us in flic soup.” He thinks South Africa’s currency, internal and external, should he linked up with sterling.

Then Mr Tielman Roos, formerly a Judge, resigned from the Bench and entered the political arena. He vigorously denounced the Government’s policy of maintaining the gold standard, but what he had in mind was the gold standard at the old parity, and his remedy for the ruin this brought upon the farmer would apparently he to return to the gold standard but at a lower parity. He made overtures to General Smuts to join him and form a Coalition in order to overwhelm the Hertzog Administration.

Negotiations were prolonged, the personal element entering largely into them. Mr Roos desired to be Prime Minister with a preponderance of his followers holding Ministerial rank. General Smuts, however, ewas not eager; there was evidently more in common between the Hertzog and Smuts Parties than between General Smuts and Mr Roos; The decision of the Government virtually to renounce gold was a vindication of General Smuts' advocacy, and it largely bridged the gulf between the two factions. It is recognised that a combination of parties is necessary for a strong administrator, but when some time ago the Bloemfontein Friend, a Hertzog organ, suggested that the solution was a Hertzog-Smuts fusion in order to keep Mr Roos in the wilderness the idea was regarded as bordering on the revolutionary. Latest messages, however, indicate that far from being an impossibility such fusion is well within tho range of probabilities, and may soon become a reality. The fact that it should be seriously suggested illustrates the amazing confusion which prevails in South African politics—a confusion which must be brought to an end before any permanent solution can bo found for the country’s monetary, financial, and economic difficulties.