MANDATE PROVISIONS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 228, 21 June 1921, Page 5

MANDATE PROVISIONS

POSITION OF INHABITANTS OF SOUTHWEST AFRICA DISCUSSED IN HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY' By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Cape Town, June 18. The House of Assembly is discussing ths mandate for the South-West Protectorate. General Hertzog said the -report of the Commission gave tho impression that the mandate was nothing more or ussr lhan annexation, which he denounced as a. scandalous international fraud, to which he would never consent, lie asked if Germans had tho right to refuse to become citizens of the South African Union. Tho Acting-Premier explained that the Inhabitants no longer were German subjects. Under the Treaty they were no longer citizens of any nation, and could not become citizens of tho Union except a? their own request. The Government had no intention of using compulsion. Tho Minister of Justice explained that tne mandate made it quite clear that the German possessions had been surrendered to tho Allies and Associated Powers and not to tho League of Nations. The Powers had an absolute right to repatriate every German subject. They had no status under the Treaty.- Nowhere in the Treaty was it .contemplated to give them the right of self-determina-tion. Ho admitted that there was not much differenco between these provisions and annexation for practical purposes.— Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.