CORDIAL RECEPTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10156, 30 December 1910, Page 5

CORDIAL RECEPTION.

MESSRS FOWLDS AND FISHER. (Received December 29, 9.25 a.m.) ADELAIDE, December 29. / The steamer Aeneas has arrived from South Africa, , Mr Fisher (Australian Prime Minister) and Mr Fowlds (New Zealand Minister for Education,) are among the passengers. Mr Fisher said nothing could have excelled the cordial, demonstrative re- j ception they had received in South Africa. The people seemed ambitious j to make the Union a success. He was [ not particularly struck with the nature of the land, although he had been informed that it was good. The way the mines were managed was worth travelling a long way to see. The wear and tear and loss of life on the Rand was appalling. Believing that representative men of the dominions knew too little of each other and their countries, he had extended, on behalf of his Government, an invitation to the Prime Minister and Leader of the Union Opposition to visit Australia. General Botha would probably accept the invitation at an early date. The division of parties was more political than racial. The recent elections had not been contested on racial lines.

There was a possibility of a Labour Government there, but it would always be a black man's country, ruled "by an" aristocracy of white labour. Mr Fowlds, interviewed, said he bad not observed more bitterness between the English and Dutch than he had expected in view of the recent history of the country. The political parties were more antagonistic than .was usual in British communities. General Hertzog's education policy had been responsible for the present acuteness of the racial feeling. Mr Fowlds was favourably impressed with the Dutch people. The native question was the most perplexing. He was sorry to say that many good people in ' South Africa entertained heathenish ideas about the black, 1 ?.