The long-expected split in the South African Labour Party has
come at last. On Tuesday, Colonel Creswell, the Parliamentary leader of the Party and Minister of Defence, definitely ended his relations with the National Council and appealed to the whole Party to send delegates to a conference at Bloemfontein next month. Colonel Creswell used hard words. He said, according to the Times correspondent, that the National Council was elected by bogus voting, and that it could not properly be regarded as existing at all. He suggested that the conference should elect an emergency body to take the place of the National Council. All this means that Colonel Creswell wants to start a new Labour Party, though using the old machinery. It is not to be supposed that the National Council will agree to this. Probably there will be two Labour Parties.
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