Norwich bulletin., 1921-03-12
Shea's News Bureau MAGAZINE SPECIALIST
 UNION SQUARE

lem; South Africa, half around the world and little known to Americans, has in it's history, nevertheless chapters which we know by heart. New Workers can find an even closer if minor tie to the residents of Cape Town in the fact that the sites of both ports, now almost price, less, were bought from savage landlords for few nandfuls of gnudy trinkets.
 "1n one respect, however, the carving out of what is now the Union of South Africa is without its parallel in the de- velopment of the United States. In South Africa the strife of two white peoples for control has been an all important fac- tor. For about R century and half the Dutch had possession of Cape TovH and the small area surrounding it whicn har- bored all the whites in South Africa. The Napoleonic wars transferred possession to England, and in 1908 the English as sumtd a final control which many of the Dutch inhabitants resented. In 1S36 many of the Dutch farmers or 'boers' began trekkihg into the interior with the inten- tion of settling beyond English influence. When Englishmen followed them they trekked farther. Finally. beyond the Orange river they founded the Orange Free State, and beyond the vaal river, the Transvaal Republic.
 First diamonds and then gold were | discovered in the new states. They brought great prosperity to the Boer re- publics, but they brought many outsiders 1 as well; and the presence of these finally led to the Boer war as a result of which the republics came inio the possession of i Great Britain.
 Aside from the war-born republics I and monarchies Of the last few years, the Union of South Africa is one of the
 youngest of the important countries ot | the world. It too was largely war-born.
 Shortly after the c Inclusion of the Boer
 war plans were set on foot to fuse the ] two old republics with Cape Colony, the oldest South African government, and | Natal next in point of age, to form the
 new union. It was finally created by an act signed in 1910.
 "The territory of the Union occupies
 the whole southern and southeastern tip of Africa in a wide strip extending about | 250 miles inland from the Indian ocean. Its area lacks only 25,o0o square miles of reaching the half million mark. of
 it's four provinces, Cape Colony is slightly
 larger than Texas. the Transvaal about
 the size of Nevada, and Orange Free
 State slightly smaller than Alabama,
 while Natal exceeds South Carolina by l a few thousand square miles.
 "But extensive as it is, the Ulion will some day be much bigger. It is the heiT of all South Africa, and even now the
 governor general of the Union is also
 high commissioner for all other lands in the southern part of the continent under fBritish control. The addition alone oi Rhodesia, which lies to the north, would double the area of the Union.
 | From the south and southeast South
 Africa is series of-mighty terraces, eaef
 with rim of high mountains from be-
 low and low ones from above. Most ol
 the slopes near the sea are fertile. vel
 wooded and we'll watered. The ascending
 steps vary in moisture and fertility
 Within this terraced bulwark lie tn,
 great plains or veld9 where wild garn'
 once swarmed and where great herds o sheep and cattle have taken their places
 These plains contribute yearly million, of dollars worth of wool ostrich feeth CTS, hides, and mohair to the outside world
 Toward the inner elge of the terri , tory of the Union are the worlds great est diamond mines. where earth sufficien l to fill thousands of cars is screened year
 ly for the sake of II peck or two of dIA