SOUTH AFRICAN RACE EQUALITY IMPOSSIBLE

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5298, 10 January 1947, Page 5

SOUTH AFRICAN RACE EQUALITY IMPOSSIBLE

N'atives Would Soon Become a Danger . T) GISBORNE, last night. People who -advocate racial equality in South Africa do -not know what they are talking about, according to Mr. Harry Holford, formerly of Gisborne, who has lived for the past 30 years in the Union. He is now visiting New Zealand on holiday. An electrical engineer, Mr Holford has travelled widely in the Union. He has held various appointments with mining and commercial engineering companies, and eventually estahlished a college of engineering in which he cc-ached young- men for engineering careers. The present difficulties among the races of South Africa do not hinge so- strongly on the preponderance of the black population over the wh-ite as on the existence of a "poor white" group in the European community and the maintenance of a clear division between British and Boers in some parts of the country. "The black races of the Union must eventually become a real danger to the Europeans if the present tendency to cultivate sentiment in their favour continues in the outside world," he saiJ. "Equality for the black races is completeiy impracticable from the point of yew of all the whites living in the Union. If political equality were granted it would be absolutely impossible for the white people to remain in the country, as the natives outnumber the Europeans by four or five to one. "One has only to travel in the Union to realise that th-e average native is incapable of assimilating political education, and that if political rights were granted, the natives would become absolute ciphers in the hands of selLappointed leaders. The prospect is one which the European community cannot possibly face with equanimity, and the proddings of sentimentalists from outside Africa on the subject of political rights for blacks naturally excite the keenest resentment."