"Mein Kampf" Extract Capetown, Jan. 24.
Before packed' galleries, a heated debate took place at the opening of the new session of the House of Assembly last evening, when General J. B. M. Hertzog, Leader of the Opposition, moved a resolution that the time had come for the state of war against Germany to be ended and for peace to be restored, General Hertzog, who was overthrown' as Prime Minister last September when he opposed the Union's entry into the war, said he would consider it a gross neglect of duty if he did not seize this first opportunity to utter a waming and insist on peace.
Very bitter passions, he asserted, were being stirred. Every opportunity to discuss peace terms had been rejected, and all was leading to he Armagedon.
"Responsible people" be added, "must feel that this dis honourable state of international lunacy should be ended."
South Africa as "Vassal State"
General Hertzog contended that South Africa entered the war for the sake of Britain. The accusation that Germany desired world domination, he said, was unfounded and unjust. and he concluded by saying that the declaration of war was the greatest blunder ever committed by South African statesmen and made the Union sink to the level of a vassal state of Europe.
The Prime Minister, General J Smuts, said General Hertzog's speech was one of the most amazing he had ever heard. With South Africa at war, the former Prime Minister had no word to say in support of his own country but presented the enemy's case.
General Hertzogs speech, the Prime Minister asserted, read like a ^heofer of "Mein Kampf" (laughter). and General Hertzog's presentation of the case was a complete distortion of the facts.
General Smuts maintained that the unjustified overwhelming attacks on Poland by Germany caused the war, and drew loud cheers when he added that the facts were precisely contrary to General Hertzog's proposition.
Herr Hitlers peace offers were made after the "martyrdom of Poland," continued the Prime Minister, Versailles should not be an excuse for the domineering policy of Herr Hitler during the last few years.
"Versailles had ceased to be a blot on Evrope." General Smuts added. "Hitler is a blot far more dangerous than Versailles. Something quite new has appeared li the same spirit of the bully and the extermination of the small man, and that is the spirit which has given rise to the war now raging."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.