SOUTH AFRICA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 November 1939, Page 6

SOUTH AFRICA

COMMENT ON POLITICAL SITUATION. SIR ABE BAILEY'S COUNSEL. LONDON, October 5. Sir Abe Bailey, in a letter to “The Times," asks that the British public should not misjudge the political situation in South Africa, nor draw unfavourable comparisons between the attitude of the Union and that of the other Dominions in the war. "General Hertzog," writes Sir Abe. "and many of those who think with him must not be dismissed as anti-Britlsh or pro-Ger-man. “The late Prime Minister has always had to bear in mind the susceptibilities and prejudices of large numbers of Afrikaners who do not yet understand the real meaning of the war that is now proceeding in Europe, and cannot grasp is this life-and-death struggle the probability that the end of Danzig and Poland may involve in the days to come the fate of Pretoria and South Africa. General Hertzog's policy of neutrality, though of course I personally strongly disagree with it. safeguarded the Simonstown agreement and therefore would not have jeopardised British sea power and, as the General himself said, would have been based oh the maintenance of the friendliest relations with Great Britain.

"Finally, let us remember that the new Prime Minister of South Africa is also an Afrikaner; that in the Great War he rendered signal services to the British Commonwealth in the council chamber and on the field of battle; and that Dutch and British alike share an equal pride in the glorious aand tragic memories of Delville Wood. Let us therefore do all in our power both here and in South Africa not to add to the difficulties which General Smuts at this fateful hour is facing with his own incomparable and . indomitable courage. The fairer we are in our judgments, the more we abstain from criticisms of the present Prime Minister's former colleagues, the better we shall help in the common cause.”