HOFMEYER

Hokitika Guardian, 30 July 1929, Page 8

HOFMEYER

SOUTH AFRICA’S HOPE. (By AN AFRIKANDER.) t South Africa to-day is rather sadly deficient in statesmen. General Smuts is the possessor of talents, political, literary and philosophical, that entitle him to rank with the greatest figures of the time; hut there have appeared in the ranks of the South African Party no successors to his crown, anci among the Nationalists, beyond General Hert/.og and Mr Tielmann Roos, there are few outstanding. it is for these reasons that Englishmen and Afrikanders alike are so concerned with the future of Jan H. Hotmeyer, whose recent analysis in “ The Daily Mail ” of the situation in South Africa • attracted so much attention. To listen to a speech by Mr Hofmeyer, as I have done so frequently, and to appreciate his polished oratory and the perfect brain digestion that goes to the making of every sentence, is seemingly to hear another Roseberj or a Balfour. I have heard many men in many countries, but never one who could keep an audience so intelligently engrossed. Since he is only 35 years of age, it is natural that Mr Hofmeyer should be described as a prodigy. From the South African College at Capetown lie proceeded to Balliol, Oxford, and upon jiis return home he was appointed almost immediately Principal of the University College, Johannesburg, which became under his guidance in 1922 the University of the Witwatersrand.

In 1924, when the Administratorship of the Transvaal fell vacant, the promise of this youth of 29 was recognised and encouraged by the bestowal of an office sought by experienced public men twice his nge.

Wonderfully was that bestowal justified. Mr Hofmeyr is no dreamer. There is in his character and fortunately so a deeply set shrewdness which will make him seize the big opportunity. Despite his rapid success, too, he has enormous patience, and until that opportunity arrives he can wait. This man, to whom South Africa looks hopefully as its future Prime Minister, looks on his part to a new conception of Empire; and his refusal in the Transvaal to hold the same political views as the Government of the day, be it Smuts or Nationalists, tallies to-day with his call for a united South African nation’s party. Mr Hofmeyr was offered this year the High Commissionership mf the Union in London. He did not accept, for five years out of Africa might cost him all the influence •he has won Throughout a most difficult period, culminating in the hot feeling shown on the one side by the secession movement in Natal, and on the other by the petty curtailments of the flying rights of the Union Jack, lie maintained a wise dignity. He is now South Africa’s great hope.