SOUTH AFRICA: Ja for Verwoerd

Ever since the Boer-dominated Nationalist government took over in 1948, its unwavering goal has been a republic for South Africa, shorn of the ties to Britain's monarch that recalled the ugly days of the Boer War. Most of the English-speaking whites opposed the idea of a total breakaway from Britain, fearing not only the economic stagnation that might result from loss of Commonwealth trade ties, but also the free hand this would give to Nationalist Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd's white-supremacist apartheid policy.

Last week, the bitter debate reached its climax as the nation prepared to...