Both Sides Are Nervous

The embattled blacks and whites of South Africa last week drew back for a momentary bandaging of wounds, and there were signs of disarray in the ranks of both sides.

Blank Shot. The blacks have been savagely mauled in the battle. Nearly a hundred died in clashes with the trigger-happy police, and South African jails are filled to the roof with 1,575 political prisoners, including 94 white allies of the blacks. Hundreds more are being arrested daily. Those leaders who escaped the massive roundups have gone underground or fled to the safety of the British protectorates of Swaziland, Bechuanaland and Basutoland. Leaderless and with their larders emptied by the stay-at-home strikes of the past month, the impoverished blacks ignored the order of the African National Congress to stay off the job one more week, and trooped glumly back to work.

For the whites, the physical wounds were light--amounting to some 30 injured policemen. Out in the wine-growing flatlands of Cape province or in the sheep-raising Karoo plateau, where the small villages are dominated by steeples of the Dutch Reformed Church, the Nationalist farmers had scarcely noticed anything wrong. At one vineyard, an Afrikaner shrugged: "Maybe the city people have trouble with their natives, but ours are satisfied. We treat them well, give them six tots of wine a day. and keep them peaceful. What have we to worry about?" Another saw Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd's escape from his assassin as a justification of Nationalist policies. "Man, it was an act of God, don't you see? He didn't die--we must be right."

Old Book. But businessmen were sharply aware that in the six weeks since Sharpeville, losses on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange totaled $1.3 billion. This economic pressure last week produced the first sign of a major split in the Nationalist Party since it came to power in 1948. The voice of dissent came from near the top--from rumpled Paul O. Sauer, 62, Minister of Lands and leader of the Assembly, who has presided over the Cabinet in place of the wounded Prime Minister. Sauer comes from the Cape area, whose relatively sophisticated businessmen and traders have long wrangled with the intolerant Nationalists of the Transvaal. Last week Sauer stood up in his home constituency of Humansdorp and firmly declared that the "old book" of South African history was closed at Sharpeville. He called for the creation of "a new spirit that must restore overseas faith--both white and nonwhite--in South Africa." The blacks, said Sauer, "must be given hope for a happy existence," and he asked for an end to police persecution, better pay and a relaxation of such "pinpricks" as the pass laws and liquor raids.

Allies Needed. Back in Cape Town, Nationalist legislators burst into an uproar. Diehards demanded to know whether Foreign Minister Eric Louw would adopt Sauer's line at next month's conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers at London. Louw's answer: "The government's policy remains unchanged." To cheers and shouts of "Hoor! Hoor!" from Transvaal Nationalists, Louw declared that any policy changes would come only from the invalid Verwoerd and not from any members of the Cabinet. Mumbled Sauer: "I was only speaking for myself."

Despite Louw's confident words, the government's nervousness was manifest in its search for allies among the Indian, Malay and "colored" (half-caste) citizens of the Union. Opening a festival at Newlands, Deputy Interior Minister Pieter Botha said soothingly: "The white man and the colored man need each other," and there were hints that coloreds may be soon permitted to ride first class on commuter trains. Though justifiably cynical about white motives, most coloreds seem ready to accept white overtures. During the work boycotts, the coloreds stayed on the job despite black threats and intimidation. Now they are being rewarded with higher wages and more job opportunities. The majority of coloreds have apparently concluded that their short-term interests, at least, lie in cooperation with the whites.

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