With municipal elections scheduled to take place in Durban on October 3rd and with the Mayor of the City, Councillor Percy Osborn, facing a three- cornered contest, we have had another typical example of such emotional outbursts. The Mayor of Durban has discovered that there are twenty thousand Indians in Durban who could not be accounted for by the figures of registration of births or immigration into the country. He has also discovered that there are twice as many Indians under the age of twenty-one as Europeans. Under the Republican Constitution, published with the authority of Dr. Malan, the English-speaking people will lose the privileged position which they hold today in the caste structure of the Union. We issue a warning from this platform to all white South Africans, who are against the creation of a Nationalist Police State, that their freedom remains in danger as long as freedom is denied to non-Europeans who form the majority in South Africa.
Democracy is indivisible.
You cannot have liberty for one section and oppression for the other under it. Had the non-Europeans the vote there would have been no Nationalist Government in power today. We would have had a government pledged to the democratic ideal, governing the Union in the best interest of all its people and of the country. In reply to the Mayor let us state that there is nothing startling about his disclosures. Instead of offering this factual explanation the Mayor's statement has tended to create the impression that perhaps these Indians entered Durban and South Africa as illegal immigrants.