The Union in Danger

Rent last week by a constitutional crirsis, South Africa was agitated by fears that the Union formed after the Boer War might be put asunder.

After the Boer rebellion was crushed in 1902, the British had tried generosity. The constitution of the new Union of South Africa provided for a Senate with equal membership from each of the four provinces in the Union. It is this equilibrium which is threatened by the Senate-packing bill introduced a fortnight ago by Prime Minister Johannes Gerhardus Strydom (TIME, May 23).

Strydom's bill provides for eight new Senators to be nominated by Strydom's government, 33 more to be chosen by the majority parties in Transvaal and Cape Province. Since the Boer Nationalists are in power in both big provinces, the bill would give the Strydom government a clear two-thirds majority in a joint session of Parliament--enough to override South Africa's constitution. Strydom's first objective is to disenfranchise the 45,000 mixed-blood folk who still have votes in South Africa, but once he has the power, many South Africans fear that he will use it to establish a one-party Boer Republic, in which Britons, Jews and Negroes would be second, third and fourth-class citizens.

Met Volkje. Explaining the government's case, Minister of Labor Jan de Klerk, Strydom's brother-in-law, said: "God is sovereign and his sovereignty is vested in het volkje [the folk], who vest it in their chosen rulers. We therefore have the right to determine what must be done, and nobody else has received that power from the Creator." Answered Harry Lawrence, leader of the Opposition in Cape Province: "I resent the implication that there is a partnership between God and Strydom--and that Strydom is the senior partner." British South Africans, most of whom stood by indifferently while the Nationalists suppressed the blacks, rose in solemn wrath now that their own liberties were threatened. In the sugar-growing coastal province --of Natal, where the British .outnumber the Boers by better than three to one, ther'e was talk of secession. But the opposition that counted most arose where it was least expected: among the Boers themselves. Thirteen Nationalist professors and senior lecturers at the Afrikaans University of Pretoria condemned the Senate-packing bill on the grounds that it would violate the principles of the constitution, destroy the rights of minorities, change the political structure of South Africa without popular consent, possibly destroy the Union.

Angry Voice. Strydom's reaction was to dismiss his Boer critics as backsliders. But one angry voice he would find it hard to ignore: that of stubborn old Nicolaas Havenga. 78, Deputy Premier in Daniel Malan's Nationalist government and once Strydom's rival for power. At week's end, Havenga spoke out from retirement. "I am unhappy about this bill," Havenga said. "It may be constitutional but even Nationalists are unhappy about it. The two parties should make a new approach . . . This upheaval going on won't do the country any good."

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