General Botha made a remarkable speech addressed to his constituents
in the Losberg district on Monday. He ex- pressed regret at the publication during his absence from South Africa of the Volkstem article urging that South Africa should remain neutral in the event of the United Kingdom being engaged in war. That doctrine was unjust, and had involved the Dutch Africanders in undeserved dis- trust and suspicion. The Government of a self-governing colony might refuse in the last resort to send its troops and ships to fight elsewhere on the side of Great Britain, but if it refused, that did not amount to a declaration of neutrality. Neutrality meant the refusal of facilities to British warships in the harbours of the Union; the disarming of every British soldier in South Africa; and that Great Britain would be treated on the same footing as the enemy. No dominion of the Empire could remain neutral without cutting itself asunder from the Empire, and it was impossible for one portion of the Empire to go to war while another remained neutral. The passage claiming for a self-governing colony the right to decide whether or not to send troops and ships out of its territory to aid Great Britain has been twisted by some critics into an acceptance of Sir W. Laurier's doctrine of neutrality, but as a whole the speech is a most convincing demolition of the " contracting- out" theory, and as such has satisfied the Unionist Press in South Africa.
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