SOUTH AFRICA.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 911, 2 September 1910, Page 5

SOUTH AFRICA.

; TJSE OF GERMAN LANGUAGE.- .'■ By Teleffpiph—Press Association-Copyright. : ■..,',■>■ Pretoria,"August 31. .. Germans in' Johannesburg have founded an.association:to'safeguard their interests, particularly in .regard to the,- German language. . They desire'to obtain permission for that'languago to bo put on an equality with English and Dutoh in the' State schools.. '

' The last hope that fie' education trouble might bo eliminated from party politics seems to have vanished with General Botha's speech last night (wrote the Johannesburg 'correspondent of • "I'hfi Times" on, July, 13). The position, ;ns defined by ' the . Premier, is that, whilst his Government accepts the whole Opposition platform—namely, equal opportuni-. ties ; .for both races, education through, the medium of the mother tonguo, and no compulsion—it cannot impose these principles on the Provincial Councils, which have control of the "primary schools for the next five years. In- short, . General Botha publicly repudiates- the policy which two of his colleagues have established in tho Free State, and four others once tried to establish in Cape Colony. On the other hand, he declines to exert pressure with the view of bringing it into lino with the diametrically opposite policy which nil profess ns Ministers iof the Union. In these chaotic circumstances, "Hertzogism" can hardly fail to loom large in the election campaign. Of a total white population of 290,000 about .4700 only are Germans. ■ , .