The African Ferment
The constitutional deadlock in South Africa is proceeding according to plan, without any hint of compromise emerging. It now looks almost inevitable that South Africa will soon be equipped with two bodies each claiming supreme judicial power, and each denying the constitutional validity of the other. Once this -stage has been reached, the deadlock could only be resolved by the forcible abolition of the Supreme Court or by a general election which returned to power a more reasonable version of the Court's self-appointed rival—the two Houses of Parliament. It is inevitable that in Natal, which has an old and independent political tradition directly at variance with all Dr. Malan's doctrines, there should now be talk of secession. It is self-evident that the Union, as it• was constituted half a century ago, could not survive if the policies of Dr. Malan were allowed to prevail. The mounting tension in the Dominion has little direct bearing on the course of events in Bechuanaland, though opinion in the whole of Africa is sensitive to events in each part. The rioting that has taken place at Serowe is a setback for the Government's plans for the Bamangwato. The possibility now has to be reckoned with that the tribe will preserve its loyalty to Seretse to the extent of refusing to elect a successor to him. If this happens, then the Government's plan, which was supposed to be " final," would fall to pieces. To revise a " final " plan might look like a concession to violence, but to return to an indefinite period of direct rule is no alternative solution. ,
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