The number of European voters in the Cape Province is 155,000, and the non-European 41,000; in Natal the European voters number 33,000, and the non-European 760. The qualifications required for a vote in each province continued after union as they were before, and therefore none but Europeans are enrolled in the Transvaal and Orange Free State. One clause in the Act of Union is to the effect that no class of European or nonEuropean voter can be deprived of the franchise except after a vote of both Houses of Parliament in joint session.

The disparity between the percentage of non-European voters in the Cape and Natal Provinces, viz., a difference between 20 per cent. and 2 per cent., is noteworthy, and asks for explanation. It is not difficult to find: the general attitude of the English in Natal towards the native and his aspirations is, or was, much the same as that of the Dutch in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Historic considerations make this attitude explicable, if not excusable. The descendants of those who, in their pioneering efforts, had suffered terribly and repeatedly in warfare with the aborigines, are not likely to cherish any very kindly feeling towards the native, or to be ready to admit him to privileges of common citizenship. A similar traditional attitude is to be found along the Transkeian border of the Cape Province; while outside the limits of the Union, in Rhodesia, the atrocities of Lobengula are too recent to have faded from the memory of the European.

But the outcome of this traditional hostility-and fear-is sometimes unexpectedly ludicrous and harmful to the European. For example, the attempt by the Natalian to forbid the Zulus to learn the white man's language reverted on his own head when he found his own children growing up like young Zulus, because their earliest and most familiar tongue was that caught from the black nurse. The traditional Dutch attitude, on the other hand, has been to compel everyone, black and white, Hollander and Englishman, to learn Dutch and, unquestionably, the retribution in this case has been the extraordinary debasement of the Dutch language in South Africa to-day.

The qualifications for enfranchisement in the old Cape Colony were based on property or wages rather than on education or colour, and the vote was correspondingly restricted, greatly more in the case of the native and coloured man than in the case of the European. Mr. Cecil Rhodes, in the 'nineties, by his Glen Grey

Act, certainly restricted to some extent further extension of the franchise to natives, but, at the same time, he counterpoised this restriction by providing certain native representative bodies with limited administrative powers in the Cape native territories. This, he could argue, was not inconsistent with his general principle of equal rights for every civilized man from the Cape to the Zambesi." The present position is that the coloured (i.e., the half-caste) and Asiatic vote is very powerful in several Western Province constituencies, while the native vote is almost the determining element in the case of a few of the Eastern Province

seats.

In the Act of Union a very important provision was made, the justification for which on general principles is by no means self-evident, viz., that in the delimitation of all constituencies a variation from the average quota might be allowed up to a limit of 15 per cent. below in the case of a rural constituency, and of 15 per cent. above in the case of an urban constituency. The word used in the Act is may, but the procedure adopted by successive delimiting commissions has been almost the same as if the word had been shall. An extreme application of this principle would, in the case of an average quota of 3,000, give a rural constituency of 2,550 voters the same political weight as an urban constituency of 3,450. It will be seen at once that even a modified application of the principle gives an enormous advantage to the country districts as against the towns; or, to speak quite plainly as to the political significance and intention of it all, puts the already numerically superior Dutch section of the population into a permanently overwhelming position as against the British section, who are largely concentrated in the towns.

Again, there has been a gradually increasing influx of a Jewish type of immigrant from Eastern Europe, often impecunious on his arrival, but gifted with an ambition and a capacity to fulfil the scriptural injunction to replenish the earth, and to a large extent inspired with Bolshevik political sentiments and a steadfast and unaccountable embitterment against everything British. This is an element in the population that is totally different from the older type of Jew, British and German, and promises to become a seriously disintegrating force in the urban centres. These Jews from Eastern Europe are admitted readily to the South African franchise, and their voting strength largely helps to secure the return of certain extreme Socialists to the Union Parliament.

An important change has come over the gold-mining area of the Witwatersrand since the Great War. Before that period, the majority of the European mine-workers were of British extraction, and very many of them went to the front; a large proportion did not return. Their places have been taken by young Dutchmen from the country districts, who have only too readily become the dupes of the Socialist agitator. The deplorable revolt of 1922, the effects of which are still felt throughout South Africa, was the more easily engineered because of the inability of this poorly equipped type of miner to withstand the assaults of the Bolshevik propagandist. These doctrines are only too easily assimilated, and, superadded to the traditional Dutch hatred of Johannesburg, have produced a permanent attitude which makes probable the continued return of several socialistic representatives for the Rand area. One of the chief features of the 1922 revolt was the disclosure of a fierce hostility towards the native worker, and a bitter resistance to his being permitted to do anything in the nature of skilled work. This application of the colour-bar had been, to a certain extent, in operation for years on the mines, and was regarded as legal, until a decision of the Supreme Court showed it to be ultra vires. The only course, therefore, if the native was to be held down in the position of a mere unskilled serf, was to introduce legislation that would make a drastic colour-bar operative throughout the whole Union; and this became the declared goal of the Socialist party.

The overthrow of the Smuts Government in 1924 was brought about by a combination of parties that could well afford to sink— or postpone the fulfilment of certain desires, if they could mutually help each other to hasten the achievement of common aims. The growth of the sentiment of nationalism had been so great in the two former Republics that it was hardly surprising that an overwhelming majority of Nationalists were elected, whose declared policy was to work for political separation from England. If this ambition were to be attained, certain obstacles would first have to be removed, and it was therefore not difficult for the Socialist and Nationalist sections to find common ground in the suppression of the native industrially everywhere, and his elimination as a voting power in the one province of the Union where he had any real political existence.

There is one element in the situation that it is impossible to

ignore in trying to explain the coming into power of the present pact government, and that is the intensity of the feeling against the former prime minister, General Smuts, in the Dutch areas of the Union. His personal efforts in the Great War and the praise bestowed on him in England and elsewhere seemed to rouse his opponents to a frenzy, and the platform material offered by the Nationalist candidates was a combination of wild racialism and the most venomous abuse of General Smuts. The appeal was largely successful, as has already been said, perhaps partly because an unduly prolonged lease of power had tended to alienate neglected sections of the population, and to make many English as well as Dutch long for a change. It can therefore be easily understood that the Nationalist elements of the ruling majority are the declared advocates of a policy of extreme Nationalism, based on a settled and vindictive purpose to undo with all possible speed what has been done since the Boer War, so as practically to restore the spirit of Krugerism. They further aim at taking such measures as will permanently establish this policy throughout South Africa. One of the most important features of this policy is the replacement of the British attitude towards subject races by the Dutch attitude.

The so-called Labour party in South Africa is largely led and represented by men whose views are socialistic, or practically communistic, and who constituted themselves the champions of the dangerous upheaval along the Reef four years ago. The fortunately miserable failure of that ill-managed outbreak intensified their bitterness and the vehemence of their language against capitalism, against the forces of order which triumphed, and in particular against the then Prime Minister. Some of the most prominent of the Socialists, through the disappointment of their hopes of wrecking the present industrial system, became so envenomed that they could fairly be said to have lost mental balance and the capacity to see any side of a question but their own. Worst of all, they seemed to be entirely destitute of any sense of humour that might have saved them from some of the absurdities to which they committed themselves. This gloomy party found itself in the position of holding the balance, and it was easy to dictate terms of co-operation, when certain important purposes were held in common.

The suppression of the black man, and the compulsion on

industry to employ white labour and to maintain a minimum wage, whether these things were economically possible or not, were the prime objects of this Labour party, and were promptly embodied in proposed legislation. The rejection of the colourbar by the Senate could, under the constitution, stay this Bill for a year only, and the two Houses, meeting in joint session, have now passed this restrictive law.

The two sections of the "pact" party also find common ground in their bitter hostility towards "the mines" and Johannesburg. Their state of mind is such that, partly by fierce taxation and partly by interference with economic conditions of labour, they threaten to cripple and destroy the industry on which the prosperity of South Africa chiefly depends.

It is deplorable that the government of the country should be in the hands of men who are almost entirely without experience of office and responsibility. Some of the Nationalist ministers are men of undoubted ability and, with experience and restraint, may do well; but others are too bitter in their sentiments and utterances to be trusted to handle questions that have an interest and an effect far beyond South Africa. The Labour ministers -like most of their party-seem to be incapable of anything beyond the abuse of everyone who obstructs their disruptive doctrines.

The attempts at restrictive legislation in regard to nonEuropeans are not confined to the aboriginal native; but, directly the Asiatic is interfered with, this government of hot-heads finds that it has touched a question of world-wide interest, and that the Government of India has to be reckoned with. Unfortunately there is no such power to intervene on behalf of the poor native, the mother country having surrendered all right of intervention except in one relation that will be dealt with later.

Since the Great War there have been remarkable, and sometimes too impetuous, developments in the direction of giving effect to nationalistic sentiments and to attempts at self-determination. Hitherto these have certainly all taken the form of releasing peoples from oppression and developing self-government, where possible, even among the coloured races, as in the case of Egypt and India. It has been reserved for the South African corner of the earth to reverse the movement and to initiate wholesale repression of a race. The Colour Bar Act does