In a bitter attack against the “plague and curse” of the anti-Semitic stand taken by South African Nationalists, Justice Minister Jan Christian Smuts tonight appealed for support of the bill fixing an “immigration quota for foreigners of non-British origin, the Havas News Agency reported.
“Don’t let us standardize South Africa,” Gen. Smuts demanded. “Stop banning anybody-Jew or other-and welcome all good workmen who can comply with the very reasonable conditions of the bill.”
The Justice Minister’s attack on anti-Semitism was interpreted as a reply to the Nationalist party leader Dr. D.F. Malan, who demanded exclusion of Jewish immigrants and charged the Jewish minority with seizing control of trade and commerce throughout South Africa.
Speaking at the second reading of the immigration bill in Parliament, Gen. Smuts declared the measures contained in the bill were justified by present conditions. He stressed that the bill would not reduce the number of immigrants or mark any radical change in the South African Government’s stand on the immigration question.
The Government is opposed to all discrimination between the people of the white race and sympathetic toward the Jews, the Justice Minister concluded.
The new bill gives the Government full freedom of action to restrict immigration to South Africa to the best elements of foreign countries. Persons considered undesirable by their own Governments are banned from South Africa, under the terms of the bill, according to Havas.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
