SOUTH AFRICA.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 April 1921, Page 2

SOUTH AFRICA.

SMUTS AS. A STATESMAN. \ THE STRIKING DEFEAT OF SECESSIONISTS.

“Just as the wave of physical disease —the influenza—swept over South Africa last year, so recently a wave of mental disease passed through the country, finding expression in rampant disloyalty.” This view was expressed in Melbourne recently by Mr. Joseph Baynes, C.M.G., chairman and managing director of Joseph Baynes, Ltd., of South Africa, in discussing the political situation in the Union. Mr. Baynes was Minister of Lands and Works in the Government of Natal in 1903-4.

Referring to the political crisis, through which South Africa passed recently, Mr. Baynes said that the Prime Minister, General Smuts, who had led the South African party to victory, was regarded as the only man who coQld have handled the crisis and saved the country from the catastrophe that might have befallen it under the leadership of a less loyal and far-seeing l statesman. By the determination and adroit manner in wjiich General Smuts had welded his party together and saved the country from the secessionists he had established his right to rank among the foremost statesmen of the world.

“When General Smuts decided to go to the country for an expression of opinion on the question of secession,” said Mr. Baynes, “the position was indeed serious. It was a memorable and historic fight in which the anti-British forces, under the leadership of Mr. Herzog, were routed. Feeling ran high in South Africa. The seces-siionists had large numbers of supporters all over the country, and were a force to be reckoned with. Their numbers were growing daily, and for a time it looked as if they might succeed at the polls. However, General Smuts’ party, comprised of Unionists, British, and the South African party, which comprises both British and Dutch, gained a majority sufficient to enable it to carry on the government of the country along progressive and practical lines for the next five years. Had the secessionists succeeded in the elections an attempt would probably have been made to enforce the policy of separation from Great Britain, and the country would have been plunged into civil war. To the South African party half the seats held by tne Labor party in the last Parliament were lost, its leader. Colonel Cresswell, being among the defeated candidates. It wa<s to the ready response of the working man to the rallying call of General Smuts in an hour df supreme crisis that the Ministry owed its majority. “After all,” concluded Mr. Baynes, “the consideration that counted most in the election was the fact that the people of South Africa could not possibly obtain better conditions that those under which they are now living. The cause of the unrest which has manifested itself in South Africa in recent years is due to the ambition of a* few reactionaries like Mr. Herzog, and to jealousy of the vast world progress made by Great Britain.”