SOUTH AFRICA'S PART.

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 245, 17 October 1942, Page 4

SOUTH AFRICA'S PART.

The solidarity of the British Empire in the championship of freedom and justice owes much to the strong character and statesmanship of General Smuts, and how deeply his assistance is appreciated has been demonstrated by the enthusiastic welcome accorded him in his visit to England. The influence he has exercised is the more remarkable because it has prevailed over pronounced elements of hostility in his own country. South Africa has had to contend with a persistent enemy within her own gates.

From the beginning of the war there were pubiic demonstrations, seditious speeches inside and outside Parliament, occasional bomb outrages and even riots in Johannesburg and Potchefstroom. But General Smuts, experienced in a lifetime of turbulent domestic politics and having a rare experience of both , winning and and losing in war and peace, in office and out of it, has shown a monumental patience. Discussing the position recently, a South African correspondent of the London Times said that his tolerance has, it is true, not diminished the activities of the Ossewabrandwag, a self-styled "cultural" organisation which long ago shed its trimmings to reveal itself under its German-educated leader, Dr Van Rensburg, as blatantly proNazi and explosively anti-British. But what has been done by General Smuts's unceasing vigilance is to narrow the Ossewabrandwag 's influence to a minimum. The latitude allowed to the firebrands, and the use they have made of it, has been one of the chief causes of the disruption of a solid Opposition into a number of partisan groups, directing against one another much of the animosity previously reserved exclusively for General Smuts and the Government. In short, the Prime Minister's restrained "wait a bit" policy may have failed to unify the country behind the war effort (which it could, of course, never pretend to do), but it has completely disunited the Opposition, the so-called Reunited Party. When blowing up power pylons and minor buildings the Storm jaers (storm troops) of the Ossewabrandwag "unbuilded" better than they knew. They converted many of the waverers ; drove some of the more moderate Afrikaner Party over to the Government, nominally at least ; and by their violence frightened even Dr Malan and his extremists in a loud denunciation of the saboteurs. To-day General Smuts has a substantial working majority. The truth is that behind the political troubles, and the acts of sabotage that occurred earlier in the year, the South African war effort has proceeded in a steady stream. Quite apart from the self-eloquent

feats of arms of the self-equipped Springbok afmy, figures can be quoted showing the Union's war-time industrial output and direct finacial contribution to war f-unds at home and in England to be higher psr capita than in most parts of the Empire. The total war effort would do credit to a country with much more than the Union's white population of only 2,250,000. While the quislings, heartened like the rest of their kind by Empire preoccupations, came slinking out of their burrows to cut telephone lines in deserted stretches of country which cannot all be patrolled, the Union's new war factories in 24-hour shifts were pouring out supplies for other Empire armies besides the Springboks. While petty gangst^rs cut electric power lines the Union was still living up to the name given by Dr H. J. van der Byl, Director-General of War Supplies — the " Empire 's Repair Shop" — by turning out spare parts to put damaged aeroplanes and tanks back into action in Libya. And while words were recorded in their torrents in the House of Assembly ships were loaded and turned with a speed in keeping with the bustle of the industrial effort. Fortunately the obstructionists have no effect on actual production. It is to General Smuts that we must turn for an apt summary of this complex picture. "The dogs may bark, but the caravan rolls on.' ' V