Hendrik Verwoerd press conference on apartheid

Hendrik Verwoerd press conference on apartheid; ENGLAND: London: LAP pkf:CS Verwoerd: (Bosanquet: Are you prepared to do anything to break down the current colour bar in South Africa?) "No, we are not prepared to change the policy, but when I say anything that does not mean allowing the Commonwealth to interfere in the internal policies of South Africa. We are best able to judge in which way we can arrive at peace and plenty and good cooperation in our own country and if we allowed for us for what we have to do, then they would have to allow us to decide for them what they must do, and how do you think either Ghana or Great Britain or anybody else would like South Africa interfering in their decisions on what their domestic policy must be."(Another questioner: Do you expect there will be strong opposition to your remaining in the Commonwealth?) "That is very difficult for me to say, I think I had better not comment on anything that is going to happen within the Commonwealth Conference; I will leave it for my friends there to say and do what they wish." (CS Bosanquet: Why do you believe in and insist upon the policy of apartheid?) "Well I think in my previous statement I have made it clear, we believe that when you have very different population groups, the correct manner of solving your difficulties is by giving each one a chance of a kind of home rule and then by becoming good neighbours, rather than try and integrate quite different peoples into one nation." (Even if this means making one group second-class citizens?) "No, I don't think that in the far future it means making second-class citizens, for instance take the Bantu, if they have their own homelands and develop even into full independence and one creates a Commonwealth of Sout Africa, I can't see that there is anything which can be termed second rate citizenship in this picture at all."