The Outlook in South Africa
Snt,—I should like to draw attention to the discrepancies which appeared in the Spectator of May 30th, under the heading of " Hitlerism in South Africa." Whilst the title of your note gives a fair impression of the trend of events in this country at the present time, exception is taken to the developments you anticipate following the arrest of Mr. Sachs.
The public disturbances which occulted at the time of the arrest, although serious, cannot properly be described as riotous; in fact the meeting that was subjected to baton-charges by the police was con- tinued after the police had left. Not to have stated that the Garment Workers' Union planned to stage a one-day token strike and that this strike was not supported by all its members is to over-emphasise the significance of their action. Furthermore, the several trade unions and labour organisations in South Africa are divided by political
party differences, and therefore a general strike was definitely not anticipated, then or now.
Further inaccuracies are that only one Member of Parliament was unseated by the Suppression of Communism Act, and not two. Mr.' S. Kahn was suspended from the House of Assembly; Mr. F. Cameson from the Cape Provincial Council. The title of the Opposition Party is not the Union Party buuthe United Party. The statement that " an immediate general election may be the only alternative to something very like civil war" is misleading, being very far from the truth. Feel- ing is certainly tense, but civil war is beyond the boundary of the thinking of the ordinary mac, and it is the latter who has the last word in elections.
Ministers of the Nationalist Government have repeatedly alleged that the overseas Press, and in particular the British Press, is guilty of misrepresentation when presenting news of the Union of South Africa, and to my mind your report has done this very thing. South Africans, both English-speaking and Afrikaans, who are working, striv- ing and hoping for a return to sane democratic government, may well feel that you have rendered them a disservice by playing into the hands of the Nationalist propagandists.—Yours faithfully,
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