SOUTH AFRICA.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1922, Page 1

SOUTH AFRICA.

GOOD-BYE TO THE BRITISH ARMY

PIETERMARITZBURG January 7

At last we have to hid a most regretful good-bye to the British Army :in South Africa. The formal notification is that from December Ist, 1921, the Defence Force of the Union of South Africa undertook the military administration of the Cape Peninsula, and the South African Command ceased to exist on that date. The last General Officer Commanding was General Carter. The end of the British Military Command recalls many memories largely happy memories for officers and men always entered heartily into tire pleasures and recreations of the British colonists. Indeed, they introduced both football and cricket into the subcontinent. I have not got the dates at hand, but one I remember. Cricket was introduced into Nata] at Fort Napier in 1847 by the old 45th. Regiment, now known as the Sherwood Foresters. And it must hare been introduced into the Cape Peninsula at a much earlier date for the Cape hag boon garrisoned by British troops since 1806. It is a long retrospect for South Africa. The day when General Carter handed over the Command and the direction of defence to the Union Government marked the end of a. long, stirring, and eventful chapter in the history not only of South Africa, but of the British Army and the Empire. The greatest militant event was, of course, the Boer War of twenty years ago, but seven and eight decades ago the old British regiments took on the natives and fought a whole series of Kaffir wars, broke their power, and drove them back. So they forced them to acknowledge the paramount authority of the British Crown and receive its protection. The unhappy part of the retrospect is the memory of Boers fighting algainst British, white men against white men, due mostly to mismanagement, misunderstandings, and racial jealousies..

South Africa became united under the Crown in 1910, and since then the Union has shared the burdens as well ns the privileges of British citizenship. South Africa sent her quota of manhood to fight for the Homeland in time of need, and now as the acknowledgment of South African nationhood thei British troops have been withdrawn from the sub-continent, presumably for all time. We are very sorry to part with them, forming as they have done the old familiar scarlet link between our adopted country and, as regards many of us, the land of our birth. Let us hope that the Union Government and people will prove equal to the task now undertaken of maintaining unaided the peace and good government of this copntry of mixed nationalities and different races.