NATIONAL PROPAGANDA IN SOUTH AFRICA

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3150, 31 July 1917, Page 6

NATIONAL PROPAGANDA IN SOUTH AFRICA

4 MANIFESTO ON "REPUBLICAN SENTIMENT." Cape Town, July 20. Tho Federal Council of the Nationalist Party, of which General Hertzog is leader, has issued an important manifesto regarding the independence propaganda. It declares that all British colonies are feeling that they will intimately reach adult status, and it describe? the movement for closer union i*f the Empire as tending to undermino the selfdependenco already achieved. It also declares that republican sentiment is wholly justified, but lays down that any endeavour to change the status of the Union must proceed on constitutional lines embodying no violent measures or demands. In any future prrangement the South African Union must be regarded as one and indivisible. It denounces statements that the agitation will lead to civil war, but admits that public feeling at present is too disturbed for calm discussion. Therefore, to achieve its propaganda at present is undesirable. . The manifesto demands that if the principle laid down by the Allies that every nation should have complete control of its own destiny is accepted by tho peace conference, South Africa should not be excluded from its practical application. [Reference and comment en the above manifesto recently appeared in Press cablegrams, but the manifesto itself as it appeared in the Australian Press was for some reason or other, not cabled hore. The point and value of the subsequent comment was therefore lost.l