NEWS FROM AFRICA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 921, 5 April 1957, Page 11

NEWS FROM AFRICA

Sir-yYour editorial of March 1, "Africa on the Move," was quite beyond praise in every respect. I hope any readers who missed it will lose no time in looking it up and studying it now. I would also like to record a vote of thanks to the BBC for giving us so many items of South African news which the press does not receive. Without the BBC relays it would be impossible to keep track of events there, and I advise all who are interested to listen to both of the morning relays, as well as the evening ones, and not merely to rely on the headlines, since snippets are often included towards the end of the news without being mentioned in the headlines. Broadly, all. press correspondents are now aware that they are liable to encounter unpleasantness of a grave type if they try to send out of South Africa any news which the Government by its own rather odd standards considers undesirable for overseas circulation. Now and then they bravely get by with something which really is undesirable, but can be relied upon not to seem so to the, Government, such as legislation to get rid of the Union Jack, or discussions in praise of "baasskap" (‘bossship" or "white man the boss"). For the rest, they appear to be trying to attract attention to their plight by sending many items of calculated triviality whilst the BBC gives out the really meaty reports of the various forms in which resistance and protests are finding expression. Possibly the best news yet received from that quarter is that which indicates that the non-European front

is shifting from passive resistance to economic weapons, and developing its powers of collective bargaining.

MARION

KIRK

(Auckland).