MAKING A NATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3052, 24 November 1908, Page 4

MAKING A NATION.

The great issue before the National Convention of South Africa, which is to reassemble shortly at Capetown, is unification v. federation. Unification would mean a single Parliament for the whole of South Africa; federation would mean such a system as is in force in Australia, where the Slate Legislatures are retained. According to the Durban correspondent of the London "Daily Mail," the Cape and Transvaal delegates want unification, bat Natal will oppose it with her last breath. The correspondent takes a gloomy view of the situation. Unification would mean, he declares, the annihilation of the

only purely British self-governing State in South Africa. British influence would be weakened, local control would be abolished, and British officials —as is being done in the case of the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony—would be replaced by Dutch. This is the real reason for the unseemly haste in dealing with the problem of closer union. The three Dutch Governments, noting the change in the trend ot public opinion in Great Britain, as reflected in the byelections, fear a return to power of a Unionist Ministry, and naturally wish to effect their great coup while there is less probability of their aims being suspected, and while the Imperial authority is in friendly hands.