That Coloured Skin

It is with a certain resigned foreboding that we observe the recent election results in South Africa. That the National Party has been returned to power in increased strength is a thing which all Impartial thinking people in the Western world must surely regret. The Apartheid issue, however much Its affects that country alone, is of consequence to the whole world in a dispute between races. Malan's Government is the representative of the whole of the while world: what his Government does to the Negroes is done in the name of the white men, end upon the whites will fell the consequences of his actions. The fact that United Nations it powerless to act in the situation is an indictment against us and our leaders who drew the Charter and deliberately left this specific loophole.

No one can deny that South Africa has problems peculiarly its own, but its answer to them is not the answer supplied by the Democratic World. One hundred years ago the rest of the world was thinking as South Africa thinks today. Those days are past to the democracies. For them there is the process—gradual, it is true—of educating the Native peoples into equality with the whites, end educating the whites to accept the coloured peoples at their equals.

Selfish and Nationalistic, South Africa is out of step with the world, and the task of the Democrats must be to educate her out of her attitude. The condemnation once levelled at the Government is now levelled at the people as a whole, for their voting is a condonation of a crime against Humanity. But to condemn is to arouse antipathy, and it it unlikely to lead to a cure: its more probable consequence would be to drive South Africa out of the Commonwealth, and while the remains a member, there it a very reel chance of persuading her as a friend to modify her action.

However much we may detest the actions of the South African voters lot us be moderate in our criticism, knowing that those people have a real problem to face, and knowing that if we are willing, we have it in our power to educate them along with their Negro brothers to the responsibilities of Government.

—F.L.C.