The demand for Britain and the outside world to take action against apartheid in Southern Africa can be justified on grounds of selfinterest as well as of morality. As the likelihood of any internal solution has receded in the six years since Sharpeville, so the chances of nonracial co-operation have withered: each year that passes fortifies the extremists of both races, and is likely to add to the exacerbation of the inevitable crisis. Temporizing by the United Nations will not only mean its risking the fate of the League of Nations over Abyssinia, but may also lead to racial confrontations across the world. Nor could the western countries present a communist propagandist with a more potent spectacle than that of them obstructing un resolutions for the sake of their capitalist investments in South Africa (though at present the communist countries are increasing trade with South Africa).
Dennis Austin’s bookfootnote1 sets out all the relevant data—economic, strategic, and political—for and against intervention. His standpoint is sober and realistic, and while his facts are essential material for anybody concerned about apartheid, his conclusions are depressing. Sanctions, quite apart from the knell they would sound for the uk economy, might require a blockade costing some £120 millions a year and an estimated 19,000–38,000 casualties, besides an unlimited commitment towards reconstruction. Better, some Europeans answer, to wait for apartheid (which is closely allied with economic motives) to wither away through economic progress. No doubt similar arguments were advanced for doing nothing to hasten the abolition of the slave trade.