The Coloured Franchise
The battle joined over the South African Representation of Non-Europeans Bill may or may not be long, but it will certainly be bitter. Any hope that the Bill might be declared unconstitu- tional was dispelled by the ruling given by the Speaker last week that there was nothing to prevent the measure's being carried by a bare majority in each House of Parliament rather than, as the Opposition contended, by a two-thirds majority of the two Houses sitting together. If this contention had prevailed the measure would have been doomed, but there was probably technical, though certainly not moral, justification for the decision that the Statute of Westminster of 1931 conferred on the DoMinion complete freedom from the restrictions contained in the South Africa Act of 1910. Consequently, the Government, in spite of the pledges given by General Hertzog and a whole series of Nationalist leaders to the coloured people (the mixed population, as distinct from natives), proposes to place coloured voters in the Cape Province in a separate voter's roll, enabling them to vote for special representatives, not coloured but white, in Parliament. There can be no doubt that there is a moral obligation to leave the coloured voters' rights unchanged unless a decision to the contrary is taken by a two-thirds majority at a joint sitting. There is no doubt that this is a further step in the pernicious policy of race-discrimination sponsored by Dr. Malan, and it is unfortunate that Mr. Havenga should have supported him in this case.
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