The Dominion. TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1910. SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 902, 23 August 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1910. SOUTH AFRICAN ELECTIONS.

The election campaign for seats in the first Parliament of United South Africa', the cables state, is now in full progress. This campaign, however, has been proceeding since it became, evident that General Botha had abandoned the best-man-Government proposals of Dr. Jameson, and decided to readopt the principles of Het. Volk and De Unie. The fact seems cap-, able of demonstration that at one lime General Botha desired to formulate a. new policy, one very different from that favoured by the racialists' and reactionaries of the two ex-Republics. Being unable to carry his supporters, his now nonbelligerent commandoes, with him on his forward march, he decided to resume the. old position, to occupy the former political fastnesses of th» Dutch. But with a difference. General Botha continues to express the friendliest and most enlightened sentimeuC-s concerning British magnanimity, the cause of. the nonButch in South ' Africa, -and even the policy of the Progressives. But in practical administration he is different. He has placed men who are described as anti-British in his Cabinet; in making appointments it is said of him that he has in several instances selected Dutch at the expense of British officials, and he has set an example to his followers by leaving iTs'afe scat to contest that of Sir Percy Fltzpatrick, the principal Progressive iu the Transvaal. His utterances and actions are thus in violent disagreement. To manj it seems deplorable that the spirit of racialism should. have been revived in South Africa. 1 But it now appears that racialism never really died. For a period thn old antagonisms seemed concealed from the general view. Speaker after speaker, both British and Dutch, waxed eloquent on the extermination of "that demon racialism." Some of number doubtless believed that their excursions into i the. airy regions of this sanguine rhetoric had helped to slay the accursed thing. But all the time "the power behind the throne," the silent Boer on tin, veld, the dour dopper in town and dorp, remained unlfeeding, unaltered, unaffected.

The latest-arrived South African newspapers should alone suffice to remove all doubts concerning the reality, if not of absolute racialism, of profound, widely-sundered political distinctions. Organs'of Dutch opinion and Progressive newspapers are equally outspoken. The new distrust of General Botha, though expressed in terms vivid and forcible, is yet mild in comparison with other feelings which have been aroused■■ among Progressives by the inclusion of Messrs. Fischer and Hertzog in the Union. Ministry. The Cape Times, in a clever cartoon, entitled "The Political Chameleon," depicts General'Botha as a chameleon squatting on "the old party leaf" and clinging to a not too sturdy stem labelled "the Premiership." "General Botha," says the Natal Mercuvy, "may be described as the man of mystery in South African politics. It is asked whether he has been sincere in his professions of non-racialism. There are some who do not believe in his sincerity ; there are others who, like Dr. Jameson and Sik Percy Fitzpatrick, maintain that his sincerity is indisputable, but that circumstances have prevented his carrying professions into effect. As to certain of his Ministerial colleagues, no dubiety is entertained. They are deemed to be unadulterated racialists. The fact that they are so is the sovereign virtue they possess in the estimation of the Dutch, and their worse vice in the estimation of those who are British in extraction or in ideals. On both sides the Ministry is pronounced to be racial in intention, as it is in composition. Tho Johannesburg Star concludes a bitter. article: "General Botha has finally and publicly declared. that the idea of a non-racial start in politics is at an end. He reverts to tho ranks of the racialists." Tho Transvaal Leader admonishes General Botha thus: "The minority in the Free State is being oppressed through the efforts of members of his Cabinet for whom he is responsible. Self-respecting South Africans will not tolerate this, and until the wrong is righted there can be no peace in the country. General Botha's words arc good.' Let us have the action, without which they are so much rigmarole." General Botha's experience of party government has-ken of the briefest description. No doubt he possesses keen recollections of the Kruger regime. That regime knew nothing of party warfare. True, General Joubert. opposed the President at times, and even sought to oust him from office, But, it was whispered, and sometimps pretty loudly, that the autocrat could aiways rely upon obtaining a majority of votes. The Kruger ricjimc can I best bo understood by certain later 1 developments of tho Ward Adminis-

tration. There were the startling wiles and undignified expedients to retain office and power, an inexplicable dread of all forms of criticism. The ICrugerian hatred of opposition journals seems, as by- a freak of Nature, to have descended like a mantle upon New Zealand's Pniaiß Minister. Mb. Kruger described the Opposition as foolish men; they stood in their own light, he frequently informed them, by refusing him their support and approval. Tammanyism in the Transvaal then was naked and unashamed. Many almost startling reminders of the old days have appeared in some of General Botha's more recent speeches. Hot Volk, according to him, was to have its basis made so broad that it would be able to "accommodate and welcome all political parties within South Africa." There was to be but one party, Hct Volk, and General Botha was to be its leader; Prior to the elections in the Transvaal in 1907 General Botha appealed for the support of all parties, and for the removal of the racial spirit. Yet, he has since admitted that that election was fought entirely on racial lines. The fact is that, at the present moment racialism in South Africa is probably as strong and as active as it ever has been during any period since the trekking Boers first crossed the Vaal. The Dutch have more privileges, greater pecuniary rewards, and a higher political status to fight for to-day than ever they had before. It is well, therefore, that the first elections should take place with the situation clearly understood by all parties. It is pot the situation that was generally hoped for, but it may have its compensations later.