The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 1916. EAST AFRICA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 90, 22 March 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 1916. EAST AFRICA.

As was most confidently expected, General Louis Botha has not teen long in making a forward movement against the Germans in East Africa. The Colonial Forces which did such splendid work in South-West Africa are again marching to success j and we may • look for the settlement of, the whole of this sphere of operations I in a very little while now. General Smuts has with him some ten thousand excellent soldiers and is co-1 operating with British forces lately! under the command of General Smith- j Dorrien, whom he succeeded. The South African Government received a most gratifying response to its appeal for volunteers for this particular campaign, another evidence of loyalty to the Motherland and another blowi at German arrogance and knavery, j The German East African campaign, it is pointed out by a special correspondent of the London Observer, is not the “mere incident” of the great world war that so many of the uninformed critics and complaisant optimists depict. Behind every question in South Africa is the always insistent j native problem, and the effect of re-j cent German military successes upon the natives has to be seriously considered. It must not be assumed that because the Dutch so quickly and brilliantly closed the German West campaign a. similar conclusion will be as readlv reached in German East. In the South West wo had an over- j whelming force, and the natives, a prey to German barbarities, were only too anxious to assist us. But in Geiman East Africa a considerable number of the natives are Mohammedan, and the essentially fighting religion of the Prophet has been creeping southward for many years past and making peculiar appeals to the more warlike of the tribes. The Germans have thus

fouud it, in present circumstances, a.i easy task to reuse the natives in East Africa against us, and their numerous native levies —they 'have several millions of blacks to draw upon—are now fully armed and drilled. Our native subjects in all parts of South Africa, are closely watching the trend ol events, and there is no need to em- 1 phasise the necessity oi art early and complete success in East Africa-. Many thousands of men have left South, Africa, for Europe, and they are to re-j ceive the Imperial rate oi pay only,, and their dependents will lie provided ! for according to the Imperial;schedule of allowances. They enlisted on these, terms, and on the vote for war expenditure in German East Africa an attempt was made to secure for the Overseas Continent the colonial rates of pay and allowances which will he ; paid to the East African force. But j General Smuts intervened, and the j matter was dropped. It is frankly j admitted, says the Observer corres-, pondent, that the financing of the Overseas Contingent has been a source of embarrassment and difficulty to General Botha, and his peculiar political position has had everything to do with his action. His own particu- , lar party is not in a majority in the | House, and although he is always j sure of Unionist support and a great i Parliamentary majority for all pur- j poses of the war, he is faced by an actively malignant and powerful Dutch section, and is by no means certain of the loyalty of many of his own followers. But he is keen enought to see that a distinction can- be drawn between purely African enterprise and service in Europe. African enterprise hAd these compensations at all events —that when territory is conquered, as was the German West recently, and as the German East is expected to he presently, there-may be lots of land to lie “given out” in farms, and the Afrikander reckons that when faims in a new land are being given away lie will ho there. The Empire has found many great men in the hour of need, but by no means the least of these are General Botha and General Smuts.