New U. S. A.?

Intelligence from Africa, as reported by TIME'S resident correspondent on the Gold Coast, Henry B. Cole:

"After this war, if I say 'Hello chappie, I'm for the U.S.A.,' don't think I'm referring to New York or don't think my kit is packed for any other part of Uncle Sam's domain.

"By Golly, no! You'd better ask me what I mean. Then I'll tell you I refer to the United States of Africa. Well, don't knock your head off. It's not my idea, anyway. It's General Smuts's.

"Addressing forces of the Union of South Africa recently, whilst on a tour in the East, General Smuts told the men that they were building 'a greater South Africa which will ultimately stand foremost in a U.S. of Africa.'

"Has the pattern been made clear? Sure. It's by no means fanciful. The spectacle is a worldwide association of kindred states deliberately aiming at decentralization, but also at local and regional collaboration. . . . It would also provide a model for the rest of the world in the difficult days of post-war reconstruction--if and only if South Africans accept the Rooseveltian slogan of 'no color bar.'*

"The transformation of a Union of South Africa into a U.S. of Africa is a task which General Smuts is capable of undertaking with a view to give Europe a lesson."

* A possible political power in a new U.S.A. would be Chief Nana Kojo Agyeaman of the Brongs. Impatient with Vichy's failure to resist Germany, he recently led his tribe from the French Ivory Coast to British Ashanti adjoining the Gold Coast. As they marched, the Brongs chanted a traditional song:

I have come from a very far country

I have been living on cassava

Now I see yams

I thank you all.

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