Comeback Cancelled

On his Pretoria farm Death came last week to Great Britain's most famed South African enemy, stern, pious General the Honorable James Barry Munnik Hertzog, 76. Until recently he had been planning a comeback against South Africa's durably philosophical Prime Minister Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts, 72. Hertzog proteges attempted a back-room coalition of four factions opposing Smuts. But the coalition failed to congeal. The sturdy old leader who hated Britain made no head way against the sinewy little internationalist who has long since looked beyond South African-British feuding to the possibilities of world union.

For 40 years shrill-voiced Hertzog had been fighting Smuts and the British Empire. Hertzog carried a Bible and a bandoleer into the Boer War, bravely and cleverly fought the British--as did Smuts. But the Hertzog enmity continued. He voted against the peace at Vereeniging in 1902, devoted the succeeding years to law and his own brand of reform. In the mining camps, the veld farmhouses and the dorps (country towns), he harangued against horse racing, gambling, nightclubs, novels and the British. He advocated no votes, no beer, no property for Negroes. In the army he introduced horsewhipping and quick execution for spies and traitors. At home he was a stern father to his three sons.

Hertzog's hotheaded career carried him to the South African heights. He was Prime Minister for 18 years before World War II. But the day after Britain declared war, the old Hertzog-Smuts battle began again in the House of Assembly. Smuts pleaded, "Stand by Britain." Hertzog blundered. He called for neutrality. He called for peace. It sounded like a defense of the invasion of Poland. The voting (80-to-67) acclaimed Smuts. Death last week insured the Prime Minister against a Hertzog comeback.

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