The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1910. THE DOMINANT DUTCH.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 833, 3 June 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1910. THE DOMINANT DUTCH.

The situation, long dreaded by the British community in South Africa, has been created by the Ministry brought together by the first Primo Minister of tho Union. From the Limpopo River in the north, to Table' Mountain in tho south,' the country is at last. under the sway of the Dutch. Dutch dominance has arrived, and what the result may be for South Africa and tho Empire it is impossiblo at the present time to say. Everything depends upon General Botha and his Cabinet. But the composition of the first Ministry is far from assuring. Mr. Abraham Fischer and Mr. Hertzog have, for years, made themselves conspicuous by reason of their lack of sympathy with tho British element within the Orange Free State. This applies more particularly to Mr. Hertzog who, since the grant of responsible government to his colony, has, on repeated occasions, been described by South African politicians &s anti-British: by the South African press he has of late been designated, "the Apoßtle of Racialism." The presence of these two men in the Botha Ministry bodes ill, we fear, for the British cause in that particular portion'of the Empire. Our reading of the situation is that, only with difficulty, will General Botha succeed in holding the balance even when the time comes for appointing members of the Civil Service, and the numerous high' and important officials of tha Union. He will have many demands for State employment from his own party, and, with colleagues like Messrs. Sauer, Fisoher, and Hertzog, whose - sympathies may be expected to lie solely in the direction of the Dutch, the likelihood is small of tho British element receiving an excess of favours. The first work of the new Ministry is to provide the machinery of government and set the same in motion against the assembling oi the Union Parliament. Several appointments, we take it, will be subject to the approval of Parliament, but by far the greater number will rest entirely upon the responsibility of Ministers. No great imagination is necessary to realise that British communities will not greatly appreciate the substitution in their midst of Dutch for British officials, or that they will admire the Government that places over them Dutch administrators in the provinces, and fills their law courts with Dutch prosecutors, Dutch magistrates, and Dutch judges. It may be not altogether as bad as this. It is earnestly to be hoped that General Botha will be able to pursue a sensible, moderate line of policy. Tho danger lies in the possibility that his experiences with the Dutch electors may, to some extent, be repeated with his Ministers. Many facts point to the conclusion that General Botha meant what he said when he spoke strongly against racialism,'and iterated Dr. Jameson's pica for tho obliteration of old, party distinctions. In too many instances, however, to Dutch advocates the extinction of racialism meant nothing more than the extinction of British sentiment. Naturally, if every Englishman, Scotsman, and Irishman in South Africa joined the Bond, De Unie, or Het Volk, and voted for Dutch methods and Dutch dominance in all things, racialism would cease. Het Voile, we read recently, was to bo "reorganised on the broadest basis": its political platform was to be "high and broad so as to exclude no one." Such an organisation could be no representative of party politics, but the object in view of the promoters was, it seems, a regrouping of Dutch and British uu-

der conditions laid down by the Dutch. Touching this proposal the Gape Times rightly remarked: "It is preposterous to expect one party to disarm and to disband while the other party insists on controlling the whole machinery of Union." Whatever may be the Dutch policy of the future, to the present time that policy has displayed the minimum of confidence in, and of friendship towards, the British inhabitants of South Africa. Nothing is to be gained by pleasant theorisings that the animosities of Dutch against British in South Africa must now have ceased to exist. The failure of General Botha to win over tho members of Hot Volk to his scheme of a non-party Government tells its own tale. That General Botha favoured a Ministry drawn, in equal proportions, from Dutch and British may, we think, be accepted as tiuo. But to give effect to -that scheme tho approval and the support of Het Volk had to be secured. The General visited every branch of the Dutch organisation, submitting to each his proposals concerning ,the composition of the first Ministry. Little confirmation seems necessary of the assumption that, to all suggestions for joining hands with the British, the Dutch electors of the Transvaal returned a determined and unchangeable "No." The Dutch, ; they doubtless contended, held a majority of seats in the Parliaments of threo out of the four uniting colonics, and to them, therefore, office, power, and patronage belonged. With the British they refused to share the governance of' South Africa. In President Kruger's time the Dutch section looked forward to a time when tho Transvaal flag—the veirkleur—was to fly. from Table Mountain, as most of the speakers strangely gave its precise location. ■ The Union Jack flies in every one of the four capitals to-day, but the Dutch hold sway beneath it. One outcome of the present situation will undoubtedly be to send every British elector to the polling booths when the time arrives for filling the Union House of Assembly. Equality of representation was not secured in the Constitution—owing to the opposition of ,the Dutch—but it is possible that the elections in October may result in a surprising political transformation.