South Africa's Military Preparations

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 3, 4 January 1940, Page 7

South Africa's Military Preparations

Enthusiastic Volunteer Enlistments NATIVES ANXIOUS TO HELP BRITAIN (British Official Wireless.) Received Wednesday, 9.40 p.m. RUGBY, Jan. 2. A survey of the military preparations in Kouth Africa made officially in the Union states that the Union’s new citizen army ia making remarkable progress. Reports from town and country in all quarters of youth Africa reflect the enthusiasm with which volunteers are coming forward. A single example is the Botha Regiment which had risen from its peacetime strength of 400 to a wartime strength of over 900, and the formation of another battalion of this regiment is in progress. New units are also being formed in such typically rural areas as Messian, Barberton and V erefiging. A spirit of cordial co-operation dominates all the activities, the survey continues, and any sectional differences have been set aside. Everywhere the fact is appreciated that all are South Africans and complete unity is expressed in the common cause. The survey points out that the lie is given to Nazi propagandist insinuations that discrimination against Afrikaansspeaking members of the defence force obtains by the fact that by far the larger number of senior officers permanently serving in South Africa's army are men bearing Afrikaans names and they like officers bearing English names aro bilingual. The anxiety of native peoples to participate in the defence of South Africa is expressed at a recent meeting in •Pretoria of the Natives Representative Council, the most important organ of native opinion in the Union. During the meeting one delegate summed up the position as follows: “Since the war broke out every African organisation that has held a meeting has expressed its unswerving devotion to the King and his Government in tho Union. An account recently appeared in the press of how the native employees of a big concern in the Transvaal have started a fund to buy a warship for Britain and this I am convinced is typical of what people throughout the Union are feeling. ’ ’