“HET VOLK.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3759, 5 March 1907, Page 2

“HET VOLK.”

The Dutch in Africa are just about where they were before Britain spent two hundred million pounds in “ subjugating ” them. The great victories of “ Het Volk ” led by the man who led the Boer troops against Britain —General Botha means that South Africa is sympathetic to Dutch rule—and is getting it. That anyone could have foreseen the establishment of responsible Government in South Africa with the Com-mandant-General of the Boer forces as Premier would have been deemed impossible. It merely shows, one would say, the predominancy in numbers of the Dutch element and suggests the cure of a larger British population. One thing is certain. Botha is progressive and agricultural, and agriculture in Africh needs all the shoving the new Premier and the first responsible “ British ” Government can give it. Since the war the whole country has been subordinated to the Rand Mines and the unspeakable foreign rascals who run them and who have through the mines run the country. There has been no other question in politics but those accursed mines. The future of the vast country which is wonderfully fertile and well watered is not under the ground but on top of it, and if any Ministry, either born in Africa or reared in England, can develop the surface as it should and would be developed but for the sinful and murderous Rand, they will deserve well of the people. The fact that the Dutch in Africa are a purely pastoral people and that the Ministry is strong in Dutch men is the best evidence that the country will progress much better along pastoral lines. The assurance of

Botha that he and the Ministry intend to promote peace, concord and alligance to the British flag seems to offer some prospect of calmness among the two white races in British South Africa. Still, one never knows.