Mandates to Germany?

With a Bible in his pocket and a bandoleer over his shoulder, pudgy James Barry Munnik Hertzog fought the soldiers of Great Britain for three years as one of Oom Paul Kruger's Boer generals. In St. James's Palace last week he bowed the knee to his sovereign as a Premier in the British Commonwealth of Nations, a position he has held since 1924, then promptly proved that, no matter what his official position, South Africa is still his only loyalty.

Not daring to present the word officially at a Downing St. meeting, Premier Hertzog slyly let the word leak to the Press that his Dominion would recommend that the independent Republic of Liberia be seized by force if necessary and handed over to Germany as a League of Nations mandate. Further, according to Premier Hertzog, the Union of South Africa would hand her mandate of Southwest Africa back to Germany also and would recommend that Tanganyika (formerly German East Africa) be given back to Germany as well.

Liberia. There is no doubt that most British civil servants would like to see some European country administering Liberia. Founded 114 years ago with U. S. help as a home for liberated slaves. Liberia has become the scandal and pesthouse of West Africa. Slavery is rampant in the interior, so is malaria. Both have made inroads in neighboring British and French territory, but the only respectable firm that has ever made serious inroads in Liberia is Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. of Akron, Ohio. Many times in recent years there have been delicate hints that the League of Nations would be more than pleased if the U. S. would accept a mandate over Liberia. The U. S. has persistently dodged. Roaring defiance in Manhattan last week Liberia's dusky Consul Walter F. Walker cried:

"The Government of Liberia resents the very thought of surrendering one iota of its independence."

Southwest Africa. London took the Liberia idea calmly. But not Premier Hertzog's suggestion of giving up Southwest Africa and Tanganyika. Recently back from his visit to Adolf Hitler, Foreign Minister Sir John Simon rose in the House of Commons last week, said:

"I made it perfectly clear to Herr Hitler that the transfer of mandates was not a discussable question."

For four reasons Premier Hertzog and other Afrikanders look on the idea of transferring the mandates to Germany with favor:

1) As Boers and Dutchmen, South Africa's ruling class is sympathetic to Germany, feel that her return to the League of Nations is important to the peace of the world.

2) Southwest Africa has been a constant expense to the Union of South Africa which must administer it. Most of its white settlers are still Germans.

3) White South Africans are outnumbered by blacks three to one. Somebody must administer Southwest Africa, and, rather than give it to Portugal (its northern neighbor) or France, the Afrikanders would prefer Germany. France's policy of raising, training, and arming huge levies of black troops they feel is a definite threat to white supremacy in Africa. It is a mistake which Nazi Germany, with its passion for Aryanism, would not make.

4) White South Africans are faced with as many blacks as they can possibly handle now. In case of a serious native uprising in Southwest Africa, the Union of South Africa dares not spare the troops from its own vast territories to cope with it.

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