Hitlerism in South Africa
The headlong descent of South Africa into totalitarianism continues. The Senate having passed the Bill setting up a " High Court of Parliament " to overrule the Supreme Court whenever the Government of the day sees fit. that measure will no doubt secure the Governor-General's assent. It will then remain to• be seen whether anyone raises the question of its constitutionality before the Supreme Court, if so what decision the Supreme Court will give and what further steps the Govern- ment will take in the event of the Act being declared unconsti- tutional and therefore invalid. Meanwhile another very arbitrary Act is being worked very hard. The Minister of Justice, armed with new powers under the measure directed against Communism, has denounced seven Trade Union officials as 'Communists and required them to resign their Union offices. Two M.P.s have been unseated under the same Act. The attack on the Trade Unions promises to cause more trouble than the Government may have counted on. The results of it have manifested themselves in more directions than one. The arrest of Mr. Sachs, Secretary of the Garment Workers Union, for addressing a public meeting in Johannesburg when under interdict as a Communist led to serious rioting, in the course of which the police were reported to have truncheoned women with considerable brutality, a fact established by photographs in London papers. Some 18,000 garment-workers have come out on strike in protest and a general strike in defence of the trades unions seems likely. The Union Party has promised the unions its full support. An immediate general election may be the only alternative to something very like civil war.
