THE NATIONALIST GOVERNMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA [FROM A SOUTH AFRICAN
CORRESPONDENT.] THE position of General Hertzog and the Nationalist Party in South Africa to-day offers an obvious parallel to that of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and the Labour Party during their term of office in England. General Hertzog's Government has not an absolute majority ; it stands for revolutionary constitutional and economic changes and it includes an extreme section which claims a right to dictate the party policy. Whether General Hertzog has the will and the power to keep his extremists in check remains to be seen.
He has succeeded to power in peculiarly advantageous circumstances. The last five years have shown that General Smuts, for all his consummate ability and his wide vision, is not the leader of men that the simple, shrewd, great-hearted Botha was. He is first and fore- Most an intellectual, and has the coldness and lack of geniality that so often go with intellect. His party had been in power ever Since Union was declared in 1910; the swing of the pendulum was long overdue, and post. 'War depression and unemployment had swelled the ranks of his opponents. He was forced to resort to unpopular measures of taxation, and was surrounded by Ministers towards whom the people felt a familiarity that was fast passing into contempt. The South African Party haa grown old and cold and weary, and the near prospect Of power after so many years in the wilderness had fired its opponents with a zeal and an enthusiasm that ‘appealed to a large number of the electors. Economically, too, the country seems to be turning the corner, and General Hertzog has been able to confound those critics who-prophesied, that a • Nationalist Government -would mean a serious depreciation of South African securities in the world markets.
The present situation is full of interest. General Hertzog has to depend on Labour support and to secure this he has had to agree to the " Pact " under which he is pledged not to introduce the Secession issue during the life of this Parliament. Just how far the two Labour members of the Cabinet influence the Government policy it is yet too early to say, and to all outward appearances the Government is a nest of singing birds, all singing the same song. The presence of the two Labour Ministers at the Cabinet meetings has had one piquant result. The Nationalists have taken advantage of their victory at the polls to secure for the Dutch language that absolute equality with English, of which they complain it has previously been deprived, but as neither Colonel Cresswell nor Mr. Boydell can talk Dutch the first Nationalist Cabinet in South Africa must be under the humiliating necessity of having to conduct its councils in English.
At present the Government barometer is at "set fair," and there are no clouds on the horizon. The visit of the Prince of Wales will serve to strengthen the Government's popularity, for they will be very careful to extend to our guest all that cordial hospitality which is so character- istic of Dutch South Africans. General lIertzog's refusal of Mr. Baldwin's invitation to the extraordinary Imperial Conference, which, if it ever meets, is to discuss the Geneva Protocol in its Imperial bearings, is approved even by his opponents. Parliament will meet in July, and, with a mass of contentious and important legislation before him, it is manifestly impossible for the Prime Minister to get away in March. The proposal that South Africa should return to the gold standard in advance of Great Britain, and mint sovereigns in this country, is one of those highly technical questions with far- reaching and perhaps unforeseen results which might easily bring ally Ministry into difficulties. And the problem has to be faced in the next few months, as the existing Currency Act expires this year. So far, however, one can safely say that the Administration arc certainly more popular and less feared than they were six months ago. They have a record of quiet and apparently efficient work to their credit, and tile individual members of it have shown an administrative ability of which no one, and least of all their opponents, had thought them capable.
The curious thing about the present situation is the almost complete eclipse of General Smuts. Like so many of the war lords in other lands, he resembles a clock of which the mainspring is broken. All through the elections his followers looked for a sign, and the sign never came. His election speeches were not unfairly compared with the efforts of a gramophone with on cracked record. In Parliament he has been equal!' disappointing, and he has not the gift of putting hear into his followers, though he has a remarkable power of calling down on himself the hatred of his opponents.
The future of South Africa in the next few years depends very largely on the personality of General Hertzog. He owes his position to the fact that he has never allowed any suggestion of personal gain to make him swerve from what he conceives to be his duty to his people and his country, and he deserves the support which he has won from his followers for his leadership during the long years in the wilderness. On the other hand he is a man of strictly limited intellectual power and vision, and he is an extraordinarily involved thinker. His speeches are so cloudy and confused that it has been said that when he sits down after making one, nobody, net even General Hertzog himself, has the least idea what kis views really are. Many people hold that his • downfall vill come sooner or later in the same way that so many of the leaders of-his own people have fallen.
The Dutch South African has an apparently incurable jealousy of his leaders, if they are of his own people. It is this which caused the Dutch to take at one time Rhodes and later Merriman as their party leaders, and it is this which has broken General Smuts. People to-day point to Mr. Tie!man Roos, the Minister of Justice, and prophesy that in five years English South Africans %vitt be helping to keep General nertzog in power against his attacks, just as for many years they supported Botha and Smuts against IIertzog.
For the moment Secession is not practical polities, and is regarded in this country much as you regard Communism in England. On the other hand the danger is always present, and any major disturbance in the world might fan the embers to a blaze. But people in England may rest assured of this : General Ikrtzog has given his word not to work for Secession until the country as a whole (English as well as Dutch) desires it, and on his word General liertzog will never go back.
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