GENERAL SMUTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 17, 23 October 1942, Page 4

GENERAL SMUTS

THE traditional belief that ever in Britain's blackest hour, great men have come forward from time to time and saved the nation from disaster may, justly be applied to General Smuts. Here we have a Dutchman, born and trained becoming* even more pro-British than many an English-bom leader. A powerful, eloquent figure, commanding the respect and leading the Afrikans population of South Africa along the road of progress and freedom, General Smuts who is now well past the three score years and ten has lived to see his vision of peaceful settlement in the union filled to the letter and his dream of an unbreakable Anglo-Dutch alliance completed in essence and in fact. We who have just heard his inspiring speech from the English Parliament, can form some idea of his stature when we review his checkered life. Born at the Cape„ he as a young man, won a reputation as a hunter of big game and as an excellent shot. He's organising capacity made him speedily adaptable for the type of warfare which the Boers waged against the Imperial troops in the first and second Boer Wars. The outbreak of these actions found him applying himself to semi military affairs in anticipation of the war which was to follow. As a commando leader he was unexcelled and Lord Roberts, Kitchener and Baden Powell alike joined in paying him generous tribute as a fearless, capable and chivalrous foeman. When the long struggle ended and Smuts found himself still a comparatively young man in spite of his rank as General, conferred by Paul Kruger himself, in common with the other Boer leaders including the indomitable Botha, he took the oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria. .That oath has never once been broken or varied in the slightest degree. During the course of the last conflict,.when the fires of rebellion again showed signs of enveloping the Cape Provinces, Smuts remained loyal and by word,-deed and example won the final support for Britain from the sullten Boer population still smarting under the wrongs and injustices common to all defeated peoples. The greatest test however was to come twenty-five years later when in 1940 the Premier General Hertzog decided with the Empire at war again not only to hold the: Union aloof from the common cause, but also to establish a pro-Nazi regime which invited his compatriots to openly declare their Hitlerite leanings. Into the gap stepped the veteran figure of Smuts, who closed the breach by forming a new government and winning by a substantial majority the national decision to declare war in common with the other Dominions. If it be any person, we owe it to General Smuts with his unbreakable loyalty, for saving the face of the British Empire in her new hour of trial. Through his instrumentality the breach was healed and once more the Empire showed an unbroken front to the enemy. Though subsequent actions by the armies of Hitler m over-running the low countries, have: won all the true Dutchmen at home and abroad to the cause of the Allies,, it must never be forgotten that! it was General Smuts who played the vital part at the crucial hour when South Africa wavered.