Dr. Malan Checked
The South African Prime Minister's announcement that, to avoid a complete constitutional deadlock, he will accept the decision of the Supreme Court of the Union (upholding a decision of the Supreme Court of the Cape Province) that legis- lation creating a " High Court of Parliament " was invalid, and that consequently.the attempt to disfranchise the Cape Coloured Voters is frustrated, is satisfactory so far as it goes. It means that till the General Election in April the constitutional position will be as it was before the abortive legislation was introduced, and that at that election the Cape Coloured people will vote on the old basis. In such circumstances the Burge Memorial. Lecture delivered on WedneEday in Londop by Professor T. J. Haarhoff, of the University of the Witw at-t- :rani, Johannes- burg, was peculiarly opportune. Professor Ha.trhoti, himself an Afrikaner, has long worked for racial understanding in Sold] Africa, but he is no advocate of absolute equalitarianism. Tht population figures he quoted-2i million whites, 81 million Bantu, one million Coloured, 360,000 Asiatics—indicate tht difficulty and the complexity of the political problems arising To the various welfare services to the Bantu in 1951, out of ?. total expenditure of £16,000,000 the Bantu contributed oak £2,000,000. The point that there is a benevolent apartheid' designed to secure the preservation of native . traditions all tribal organisation, as well as a malevolent one, designed keep the Bantu in .political and social subjection, is. sour' There are men.of gpodwill in the Union working for the form policy, but the challenge to the .Africans presented by measur like the Anti-ektommunist Act and the use made of them resul inevitably in all the emphasis being laid on malevolen apartheid. There is time before the General Election for th atmosphere to clear and a better spirit to be engendered, bu not much justification for believing that that will happen. Among the whites a narrow nationalism is ranged against relative liberalism, and at the last election nationalism triumphed. If that happens again the consequences \■ ill he pave indeed.
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