Year Standstill To U.K. Laws On S.A.

Press, Volume C, Issue 29505, 5 May 1961, Page 13

Year Standstill To U.K. Laws On S.A.

<A Z P.A -fauttr—Copyright) LONDON, May 4. The House of Commons passed a bill last night authorising a standstill of one year to laws governing Britain’s relationships with South Africa after South Africa becomes a republic on May 31 and leaves the Commonwealth.

There was no vote. Mr John Dugdale, a former Labour Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, moved an amendment—defeated by 264 votes to 183—seeking to disallow South African stock to be trustee stock in Britain. The present position enables South Africa to borrow money in London more cheaply. Mr Raymond Gower, a Conservative, said Mr Dugdale seemed to want to treat South Africa worse than any other country in the world. Mr Dugdale: “They have elected to be a foreign country and I want to treat them as a foreign country." Mr Gower: ’"They are not a foreign country. They contain a million or more persons who are British by descent.”

Mr Fenner Brockway (Labour) said territories such as Tanganyika, the West Indies and Singapore, which held strong views about apartheid and were moving towards independence, would

regard it almost as an Insult that the British Parliament should say that treaties between them and South Africa should continue to operate for a year.

The Secretary for Commonwealth Relations (Mr Sandys) said ft would be wholly contrary to constitutional usage to provide that an act of Parliament which applied to a dependent territory should not come into force except with the consent of that territory. Mr Hilary Marquand, Labour’s Commonwealth spokesman. said the extradition laws relating to persons accused of political offences in South Africa would have to be reviewed. He did not want to encourage a flood of refugees from South Africa, but if that should happen, they should at least be treated with care and no obstacles placed in their way to getting into neighbouring British High Commission territories or Britain.