TIIE,
EliGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD.
BY EVELYN rt RENCE.
PREPARATIONS for the forthcoming South African- election are beginning in earnest and the Nationalists and the South African Party both maintain that they will have a. working majority. The general expectation is that the Nationalists and Labour together will have a majority over the South African Party. General Smuts's followers will certainly have the hardest' fight they have had since the establishment of the Union. There are several reasons why a defeat of the South African Party has been anticipated by many onlookers. First the fact that the party has brig been in power. As we know from experience in Great Britain the popularity of a Government which has been in office for some time steadily diminishes. Then, owing to the Government's retrenchment policy it has become unpopular with a large section of the Civil Service and of the railway men, two very important elements in the South African electorate. Finally, there ' is the Nation- alist distrust of General Smuts on account of his so- called Imperialistic tendencies. Curious as it may seem to European observers, his long absences at the Paris Peace Conference and at the Imperial Conference, where he greatly enhanced his reputation for statesmanship, have not increased his popularity with many of his countrymen. Recent cables, however, state that the confidence af the South African Party is growing, and even the Nationalists admit that the outlook for General' Smuts is not quite so hopeless as they expected. * * *
Previous page
