Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
Blaine had helped him with this work, and the results had been fed into the company computer and were kept up to the minute. After a lifetime in politics, Blaine was a skilled analyst and he had been able to trace in the tenuous and concealed lines of loyalty and commitment that bound this group of important men together.
At the broadest level every single one of them, apart from Shasa, was a member of the Broederbond- the Brotherhood - that invidious secret society of eminent Afrikaners whose single object was to advance the interest of the Afrikaner above all others at every possible turn and at every level from that of national politics through business and the economy, on down to the levels of education and the civil service. No outsider could ever hope to fathom its ramifications, for it was protected by a curtain of silence which no Afrikaner dared to break. It united them all, no matter whether they were members of the Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church or of the even more extreme Dapper church, the Hervormde church which by Article No. 3 of its charter had ordained that heaven was reserved exclusively for members of the white race. The Broederbond united even the southerners, the Cape Nationalists, and those hard men from the north.
As Shasa rearranged his thick sheaf of notes, which he would not need since they were already committed to memory, he glanced down the table and saw how the two opposing forces in the cabinet had arranged themselves like the grouping of an army. Shasa was quite obviously arrayed with the southerners under Dr Theophilus D6nges, one of the most senior men, who had been a member of the cabinet since Dr Malan brought the party to power in 1948. He was leader of the party in the Cape, and Manfred De La Rey was one of his men. However, they were the smaller and least influential of the two groups. The northerners comprised both the Transvalers and the Orange Free Staters, and amongst them were the most formidable politicians in the land.
Strangely, in this assembly of impressive men. Shasa's attention went to a man who had been a member of the Senate as long as Shasa had himself been a member of the lower house. Before his appointment to the Senate in 1948, Verwoerd had been the editor of Die Transvalet, and before that he had been a Professor at Stellenbosch University. Shasa knew that he had lectured to Manfred De La Rey when he was a student, and had exerted enormous influence upon him. However, they were in different camps now, Verwoerd was of the north. Since 1950 he had been Minister of Bantu Affairs, with godlike powers over the black population and had made his name synonymous with the ideal of racial segregation at all levels of society.
For a man with such a monumental reputation for racial intolerance, the architect of the great edifice of apartheid which was being erected with intricate interlocking laws that dictated every aspect of the lives of the country's millions of black people, his appearance and manner were a pleasant surprise. His smile was kindly, almost benign, and he was quiet spoken but persuasive as he rose to address the cabinet and explain with the aid of a specially prepared map of South Africa his plans for the rearrangement of black population densities.
Tall and slightly round-shouldered, with his curly hair beginning to turn to silver, there could be little doubt of his utmost sincerity and belief in the absolute rightness of his conclusions. Shasa found himself being carried along on the plausible flood of his logic. Although his voice was pitched a little too high, and the tense note of his monologue grated on the ear, he carried them all on the strength, not only of his total conviction, but also of his personality. Even his opponents were filled with awe at his debating ability.
Only one small detail worried Shasa, Verwoerd's blue eyes were slitted, as though he were always looking into the sun, and though they were surrounded by a complex web of laughter lines, they were cold eyes, the eyes of a machine-gunner staring over the sights of his weapon.
Blaine's words came back to Shasa as he sat at the polished stinkwood table. 'No, Shasa, it's not a game. You have made yourself responsible for the welfare of sixteen million souls. It's no longer a game, but a sacred trust." But he remained expressionless as Verwoerd ended his presentation. 'Not one of us here today doubts that South Africa is a white man's country. My proposals will see to it that within the reserves the natives will have some measure of autonomy. However, as to the country as a whole, and the European areas in particular, we the white people, are and shall remain the masters." There was a general murmur of agreement and approbation, and two of the others asked for clarification on minor points. There was no call to vote or to make any joint decision, for Verwoerd's lecture had been in the form of a report back from his department.
'I think that Doctor Henk has covered this subject fully - unless anybody else has a question, we can go on to the next matter on the agenda." The prime minister looked down the table at Shasa. The agenda read: iTEM TWO; Projection by the Han. Minister for Mines and Industry on the capital requirements of the private industrial sector over the next ten years and the proposal of means to satisfy such requirements.
This morning would be the first time Shasa would address the full cabinet, and he hoped he would muster only a small portion of Verwoerd's aplomb and persuasion.
His nervousness faded as soon as he rose to speak, for he had prepared in depth and detail. He began with an assessment of the foreign capital needs of the economy over the next decade, 'to carry us through to the end of the 1960s,' and then set out to estimate the amounts available to them from their traditional markets within the British Commonwealth.
'As you see, this leaves us with a considerable shortfall, particularly in mining, the new oil from coal industry and the armaments sector.
This is how I propose that shortfall should be met: in the first instance we have to look to the United States of America. That country is a potential source of capital that has barely been tapped --' He held their attention completely as he described his department's plans to advertise the country as a prosperous market amongst the American business leaders, and to entice as many of them as he could to visit South Africa at the expense of his department. He also intended establishing associations with sympathetic and influential politicians and businessmen in the United States and the United Kingdom to promote the country's image, and to this end he had already contacted Lord Littleton, head of Littleton merchant banks, who had agreed to act as chairman of the British South Africa Club.
A similar association, the American South Africa Club, would be formed in the United States.
Shasa was encouraged by the obviously favourable reception of his presentation to continue with a matter he had not intended raising.
'We have just heard from Dr Verwoerd the proposal to build up self-governing black states within the country. I don't wish to tackle the political aspects of this scheme, but as a businessman I feel that I am competent to bring to your attention the final cost, in financial rather than human terms, of putting this into practice." Shasa went on swiftly to outline the massive obstacles in logistics and lost productivity that would result.
'We will have to duplicate a number of times the basic structures of the state in various parts of the country, and we must expect the bill for this to run into many billions of pounds. That money could more profitably be invested in wealth-producing undertakings --' Across the table he saw Verwoerd's great charm ice over with a crust of hostility. Shasa knew he was autocratic and contemptuous of criticism, and he sensed that he was taking a risk by antagonizing a man who might one day wield ultimate power, but he went on doggedly.
