Commonwealth Deadlock

After two days of nervous debate, the Commonwealth Conference in London is still deadlocked over South Africa. The question facing the conference is, of course, whether it should re-admit the Ishmel after it becomes a republic May 31. Prime Minister Macmillan's compromise plan, which combines admitting South Africa and condemning its racial policies is a workable answer to this question, and one which the conference ought to adopt, despite the misgivings of its six Asian and African members.

Judgement on whether to allow the South Africans to remain in the Commonwealth turns on whether one feels there is any hope there. Everyone condemns apartheid, and certainly no one at the conference desires to support the tragic status quo in that unhappy land. But cutting South Africa loose would in no way improve its plight. Isolation would worsen the lot of the blacks, since the Afrikaaners would be driven through fear to worse repression, and it would weaken the position of the English-speaking population, the only soil for the seeds of change in the whole country. Severing the ties between the English-speaking group and the rest of the Commonwealth would only intensify its loneliness and despair. The formation of the republic has lessened Afrikaaner resentment of this group, and as long it continues to receive support from England, there is possibility for reform and change. Any driving of the two white cultures into their racial laagers would ultimately hurt the blacks. As in the often-proposed boycott of South African products, blacks and progressive groups will suffer first if South Africa is barred from the Commonwealth. Total, desparing solutions to its problems--such as the international boycott and ostracism--ignore the potential for slow improvement in South Africa. For example, the pace of industrialization has peen rapid, and the industrial machine is open for exploitation by African workers; strikes, like the celebrated bus boycott, could be a powerful weapon for change.

Macmillan's compromise is sure to dissatisfy the Asian and African leaders, who will have some awkward explanations to make to their people. The question such a compromise must raise in the minds of non-white participants to the London conference is the meaning of Commonwealth status; for the best single argument against South Africa is that the Commonwealth is becoming the major bridge between Asians and Africans and the West. It will be tragic if this bridge between the races collapses over the false issue of apartheid. The Asians and Africans must realize that apartheid is not the issue before the conference. If they can see that Macmillan's plan is the lesser of two enormous evils, then there will still be hope for changing the lot of the black in South Africa.