EMPIRE STATESMAN

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 11, 8 October 1943, Page 5

EMPIRE STATESMAN

Field-Marshal Smuts’s Visit

LONDON, October 6. While Field Marshal Smuts is in Britain preliminary arrangements will . be made for the meeting of Dominion Prime Ministers which Mr. Churchill foreshadowed in a recent speech, says the Press Association’s diplomatic correspondent. ’ ! .. .*$ General Smuts may pay a short visit to America. His arrival in Britain only a short time before the meeting of Foreign Ministers in Moscofy is no coincidence. There is a belief in London that the underlying purpose of tin* visit is Mr. Churchill’s great reliance ou Genera! Smuts's judgment- in world affairs. Mr. Churchill may have called him iu to advise on complex problems facing the United Nations in the coming months. It is also understood that Genera! Smuts came to Loudon to discuss the role South African troops can play iu. the battle for Europe. When he was travelling to England he told the 6tl< South African (Armoured) Division a: Cairo: “The final battle will be fought on the Continent, and you will be there. The hardest and bloodiest battles lie ahead.” There has been no official mention of (he South African troops for many months, and u description of General Smuts reviewing ini armoured division in Cairo indicates at least part of what has been done with them.