DemOcracy in South Africa It is curious to find General
Hertzog telling the old Stellenbosch students that democracy is played out in Europe, but will make its last stand in South Africa. Some of us at times have wondered whether his Nationalist Government was not reverting to pre-democratic methods in its handling of native problems. There is doubtless some truth in his argument that the spread of education does not necessarily make the average citizen more intelligent or less selfish. But his suggestion that modern party conflicts are ruining democracy would make a pretty subject for an academic debate, and the motion would probably be negatived. Past history and present circumstances vary so much from nation to nation that a general proposition of this kind is unconvincing. England and France, Holland and Belgium and Scandinavia show no weakening of the democratic tradition, though Italy and Germany and Russia are now ruled by dictators. South Africa, as General Hertzog admitted, has her own snecial difficulties with a small European and a vast native population. In such a setting democracy is faced by very exceptional dangers, which some of General Hertzog's colleagues sometimes seem to forget.
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