AN ARROGANT MINISTRY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1340, 18 January 1912, Page 4

AN ARROGANT MINISTRY.

The Botha Ministry in South Africa bears a resemblance to the Ward Ministry in New Zealand which is in some respects surprising, almost startling, in its completeness. There is the same collection of mediocrities named the Cabinet: the same secret, mysterious, Order-in-Council kind of administration: the same would-be autocracy, united with tyranny, innuendo, and slander : the same empty platitudes and pompons trivialities. In short, many of the worst elements of effete and discredited Wardism can be already observed in- the Boer Government of South Africa. But this is no instance of borrowing policies, programmes, or even methods. Such acts are natural to politicians like the ex-Boer General and Sir Joseph Ward. When the latter, for example, introduced Krugerism into New Zealand, no one suggested that ho was consciously and deliberately adopting the methods of President Kruger. In all probability Sir Joseph Ward knows extremely little about that interesting potentate in a small way. Very likely it was news to him that ho had unwittingly evolved and was practising precisely the same kind of deed that was discovered and greatly favoured by the Bper President. Men and Ministers of similar_ type naturally exhibit corresponding tendencies whether the opportunity to do so be given them in South Africa or in New Zealand, or anywhere else. In one respect the Botha Ministry differs greatly from the Ministry headed by Sir "Joseph Ward. According to Sir Percy Fitzpatrick—who defeated General Botha at the general election—the Botha Cabinet is kept intact by the operation of two forces—racialism, and the position and emoluments of office. Sir Joseph Ward's Ministry was less bountifully provided with the factors of adhesion. Office, and all that it meant, was the one solitary cause that kept the Ward Cabinet moro or less together. In South Africa, as here, land provides abundant scope for divergent views, and three different settlement schemes have been enunciated by three different Ministers. "Judge not by personal opinions, but by the decisions of the Cabinet," says Sir Joseph Ward: "Our policies arc the same, but we look at questions from different standpoints," declares General Botha. By far the most insolent of General Botha's assumptions is his recent claim of converting his supporters into a Dation. A congress was held at Blocmfontcin when some hundreds of Dutchmen and a fair sprinkling of Englishmen attended, each and all of them personally invited to be present by the Premier. The object of the gathering was to form the South African party: that is, to merge the three Dutch political organisations—Hot Volk, De Unie, and De Bond—into one body. This was done and the result is grandiloquently styled the • South African nation. General Botha, like 'Sir Joseph Ward, frequently imports into his utterances terms of very doubtful meaning, but, when he applies the name of nation to his followers, and to his followers alone, he simply intimates to the world his ignorance of_ what, a nation is. At Bloemfontcin, he announced, had been created the South African nation. That nation would have to contend against enemies—the Opposition, presumably—but, in time, it would be supreme. General Smuts, one of the Union Ministers, went scarcely so far as his chief. Mr. Fowlds, it may be recalled, was so bewildered when the electors rejected his advances that he', concluded that the said electors were bereft of their senses. General Smuts obviously had some equivalent description for voters joining, or declining to join, the new party. The work before the Congress, explained this Minister, "is the formation of a party to which all right-minded people, all true South Africans, will belong." Quite so; and those who belong to the Opposition are necessarily not right-minded. To this stupendous impertinence the • 'Natal Mercury rightly replies: "This simply means that those who do not belong to tho political party which General Botha and Mr. SMUTSarc trying to form arc not 'right-minded people,' and are opposed to the welfare of the country and the cultivation of a South African feeling. This arrogant assumption of a superior patriotism attaching to a particular party organisation is racialism personified, and is the very attitude to foster the spirit of racialism." General Botha's marvellous exploit is comparable only to those airy projects of the New Zealand Prime Minister which drew upon him the ironical interrogations of Mr. Asquith and Sir Wilfrid Laurier at the Imperial Conference. The sudden appearance of a brandnew nation at the bidding of General Botha has led to much enter- \ tnining comment enlivening the newspapers of South Africa. One Johannesburg _ journal, apparently not "right-thinking," ingenuously expresses profound amazement at the case with which General Botha has < performed the miracle: a second al- | v. ays thought hitherto that nation- : nlity had somnthipg to do with , birtL not with politics: and a third ;

is certain that nothing so wonderful as the Premier's net has been lecorded since the creation of the world. Jn a less facetious vein the t'niw Times says: "The logical sequence of the Prime Minister's declaration would be the immediate dissolution of the Ministry, and its leconstitution upon those broad and harmonious lines which be has sketched in his speech. But it is preposterous arrogance for a single individual, or any particular group of individuals, to lay claim to the exclusive power, or the exclusive right, upon their own terms to build up a nation or a country. (.lenkra:, Botha's view appears to he that South Africa should accept the aegis of a benevolent autocracy consisting of the Cabinet. But before that happy consummation is achieved, the country will need something more than platform speeches." Platform pronouncements go a long way to confuse and mislead the electors. But only for a time, as New Zealand has demonstrated. General Botha and Sir Joseph Ward arc masters in the art of political subterfuge, experts in the evasion of awkward facts,qiiibblers whose words and actions agree only when it suits them that they should. At the Eighty Club in London > General Botha extolled "Dr. Jim" and the Unionists, and thanked them for their services to the States; among his Boer compatriots he more than implies that they are traitors to South Africa, The New Zealand Prime Minister, too, it will be remembered, had views and sentiments exclusively for London.