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Pact

(3) Germany, while professing to join the League for what she can get out of it is in quasi alliance with Russia, its sworn enemy.

(4) Italy, if we may judge by Signor Mussolini's speeches, has no faith in it whatsoever.

(5) France tries to make the best of the League while realizing its impotence, which necessitates other precautions.

(6) Japan is a nominal adherent who would never be deflected by the League from upholding her own interests.

(7) Great Britain is the solitary Great Power whose leading politicians believe in the League of Nations, but their reputation for foresight in international affairs would be correctly represented by the word "NIL."

THE Sinister Pact in South Africa still holds together. This is the combination between Labour, led by Colonel Cresswell, whose party is mostly of English The Sinister origin, and Nationalism, of purely Dutch consistency. The programme jointly issued by this combination makes for real trouble, not only for South Africa, but for the whole British Empire. There is in the first place, the Colour Bar Bill. This is a measure to prohibit natives from doing skilled work. The slogan, “A White South Africa," is made a cover for oppressive legislation. General Hertzog seems to want to work up a native war, and he may yet succeed, though his early attempts have failed. The skilled Natives and Indians on the Railways, which are Government owned, have been dismissed, and "Poor Whites," Dutchmen all and of a very undesirable class, have been put on in their place. The AuditorGeneral of the Railways has called attention to the fact that the employment of expensive white labour, in place of cheap native labour, is illegal, as the South Africa Act lays down that the Railways and harbours must be administered on "business principles." But his remonstrance has hitherto been ineffective. In addition to this a Bill has

been prepared, and introduced into the Cape Parliament, to take the franchise from such Natives and coloured people in Cape Province as have hitherto exercised it. The real reason is that the Native votes against the Dutchman and for the Englishman. The result of all this actual and threatened change may be guessed. The Native is anxious and uneasy. He feels he is in the grip of his old oppressor the Boer, and that the days of English rule and fair play are far away. The cardinal difference between Englishman and Boer has always been this question of the Native. The Boer has always ill-treated the Native; the story is told in our Native wars in South Africa, the bulk of which originated in the oppressive habits of our Dutch subjects. This was recognized in 1820, when a plantation of English settlers was made in the Eastern Province of Cape Colony, to act as a buffer between the Boers of the Western Province and the Native Territories. In 1903 the same principle governed Lord Milner's choice of settlement land, when he placed settlers in the "Conquered territory on the borders of Basutoland. Unluckily his settlement schemes were not persisted in, and the Union of South Africa has fallen by stages back into the jobbery and obscurantism of Boerdom through the administration of three successive Dutch Prime Ministers, Generals Botha, Smuts and Hertzog. Their first acts of misgovernment took the form of jobbery on behalf of their own people. Out of a white adult population of 800,000, 90,000 are officials-mainly Boer. Along with this process of creating posts for Dutch has been the equally rapid one of getting rid of the British officials who created an excellent administrative machine, now breaking down under the load of "passengers" put on to it. Then comes the further stage, namely, alienating and oppressing the 6,000,000 loyal Natives.

THERE is a further step ahead: the Flag is to go. The Royal Arms have been taken off most Government notepaper, and now the Union Jack is to be The Flag abolished. The Dutch, including General Smuts, are all in favour of this change, and according to the

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well-informed correspondent of The Times, the Labour Party "is divided, but their representatives are willing to support their Nationalist colleagues to obtain an agreed Bill" (on the Flag question) "if the South African Party members will consent to the elimination of the Union Jack” (our italics). Let us hope that the South African Party will remain firm in spite of General Smuts, their titular leader. For if this plan of eliminating the Union Jack from the design of the South African flag is carried out, no one will be able to say Resurgam," as was once before said when the Union Jack was hauled down and buried in the Transvaal. It is not imaginable that Natal, or the eastern province of Cape Province, so intensely proud of English descent, can agree to this. The result of this anti-British action can only mean local trouble. Can nothing be done to show them that some of us in England are watching the effort of our loyal fellow-subjects with sympathy? Is it too much to expect of a Conservative Government that they should remember England in their dealings with South Africa?

So with
Coal

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Everything of any consequence in this country is invariably postponed to the last moment of the last hour in the complacent and confident belief that something will turn up to obviate disaster, or, if the worst comes to the worst, that somehow or another and however unprepared we may be, we shall manage to "muddle through as on former occasions. So it has been as regards the Coal Strike, which has hung over our heads like a sword of Damocles ever since the publication of the Report of the Coal Commission several weeks ago without many persons being induced to take the matter really seriously or any practical steps being taken to prevent catastrophe. At the moment of going to press (April 26th) no man can foresee whether some twelfth-hour solution will be "improvised" or the community plunged into an industrial war of incalculable dimensions. We can form no opinion worth expressing concerning an event that will be settled one way or another before these pages reach our readers. The Prime Minister was eventually brought in

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as the deus ex machina who would produce a solution of an insoluble problem, judging by the rival statements of the Mining Association representing the Coal Owners and the Mining Federation representing the Miners. These bodies, so far from approaching agreement, never discovered any basis of negotiation. That Mr. Stanley Baldwin's aid was finally sought by the Industrial Committee of the Trade Unions is perhaps a good sign, as evidence that important elements in the Labour World prefer peace to war, whereas every utterance of the Chief Spokesman of the Miners indicate a preference of war to peace. Emperor Cook's boast that he is "a humble follower of Lenin" speaks for itself. He has done everything to inflame the situation and to make any settlement impossible. If he really represents the miners there is no hope of peace. Ministers are criticized for allowing matters to drift to the edge of disaster, but they would not be a British Government had they acted otherwise, moreover it must in fairness be admitted that had the Prime Minister intervened earlier the wiseacres would have declared that but for his "premature action, the opposing parties would have succeeded in reaching a solution equally satisfactory to capital and labour." All that can now be said is that the outlook could hardly be blacker, and we can only hope that while these pages are in the press those optimists may be justified in their belief that the Prime Minister will produce the rabbit from his hat.

Parties

THE Coal Commission cannot be blamed for this crisis. On the contrary, Sir Herbert Samuel and his colleagues are generally acknowledged to have tackled The Three their tremendous job with ability and thoroughness and to have produced a Report of constructive value containing a scheme of more or less practical character. This could not appeal in its entirety to any Government calling itself Conservative, but in the interests of peace the Cabinet pledged themselves to adopt it and to introduce the necessary legislation provided the other two parties, viz. the owners and the miners, agreed likewise to accept it as a whole. The Mining Association,

without undue delay, despite the fact that many of the Commission's proposals were distasteful to many coal owners, likewise agreed to accept the Report in the interests of peace. But the Miners' Federation, which is dominated by Jingoes of the worst type (in whose eyes the working miner is a mere political pawn to be moved as Moscow directs), from the outset adopted an intransigeant attitude, and flatly, continuously, and offensively refused to make any contribution to a settlement. They declined to distinguish between the varying conditions in the different districts necessitating different wage arrangements as suggested in the Report. They vociferously declared that under no circumstances would they tolerate any reduction of present wages anywhere, or any addition to hours. In a word, while the Government and the owners accepted the Report and pledged themselves to adopt its scheme, the Miners' Federation would only accept those portions that suited their book and rejected the rest. If Peace or War rests with them it must be war, because war is just as much their policy as it was that of Germany in August 1914. Some Mining Politicians are naked revolutionaries eager to emulate Lenin and place this country under Soviet Government. Then we have the Socialists under, or over, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who, while professedly Constitutionalists and lip servants of peace, have done nothing to promote peace in the coal mines, because they hope to bluff the Government into Nationalization. Will the Politicians of the Labour World be able to upset the apple-cart? That is the question.

Mismanage ment at Westminster

THE House of Commons cannot be said to have greatly distinguished itself of late, as it has expended inordinate time on things of small moment, and has indulged in several "all-night sittings," of which some members appear to be proud, but which strike the rest of the community as extravagantly silly. What would be thought of any other institution, society, or business which had to confess that through mismanagement during the day it was obliged to sit up all night! There is nothing to be said for this

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