DUTCHMAN APOSTLE OF EMPIRE

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 34, 3 February 1939, Page 7

DUTCHMAN APOSTLE OF EMPIRE

"The Empire has a heart and it has limbs. The heart and the limbs are complementary to each other. The heart of the Empire does not beat in the leg of the All Black or the leg of the Springbok, nor in the tail of the Kangaroo. It throbs in England, and while we in England ave very proud to see how the leg and the tail are growing in strength we must realise that the heart and only the heart makes it possible. We must see that the heart is not weakened at the expense of the limbs."

MARRIED to a soft-voieed, blue-eyed, typically English cousin of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Mr. B. O. Schonegevel, South African Dutchman, spoke to the ‘‘Record’’ in these words last week. ‘He is devoted to the cause of the Empire with. a- fervour greater, or at least more outspoken, than most born British. people. Says Mr. Schonegevel: "I re- . gard a united Empire as the greatest force for good in the. world," , For that reason he-is the honorary chairman of the executive council of the Empire Unity League, -travels the world as its apostle, has _ spoken over the air from NBS stations in New Zealand on the virtue of Imperial thought. Born of Dutch parents in South Africa, he fought for the British against his own people in the Boer War. "| realised then," he says, "that the welfare of my own country lay within and not outside the fold of the Union Jack." Though South Africa, unlike Australia and New Zealand, took advantage of the Statute of Westminster, Mr. Schonegevel has no fears of separation. » There were some who said then that the silken cord binding the "Empere had been further frayed. These people were wrong. As far ‘as South Africa was concerned, that silken cord bound that country more closely to the throne and Empire than the stoutest chain.

South Africa, as a democracy, would: have to decide in the democratic manner what part it would play if England and the other parts of the Empire were menaced, but Smuts had definitely stated in South Africa less than one month ago that when England was at war South Africa would be at war also. "There is not the slightest chance of Germany getting back

her former colonies in South West Africa or East Africa," said Mr. Schonegevel, "sot because of any particular value of those countries, but because Germany has not yet behaved in a

manner which we can regard as being neighbourly." Summed up Mr. Schonegevel: "After all, 25 per cent. of the earth’s land surface belongs to the British Empire. The Union Jack, with some slight variations, flies over 25 per cent. of the peoples of the earth. These peoples are of all colours and creeds, but they enjoy

that which today is becoming less and less in the world-freedom. On that rock rests the foundation of the British Empire, and on that rock every man of the Empire will stand to the last."