RAYMOND HEARD is a 25-year old political reporter for the Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is studying this year in the Government Department under a Frank Knox Fellowship, ater which he plans to return to South Africa and continue his career in journalism.

A Whites only referendum decided on Oct. that the Union of South Africa should become a republic.

Nationalist Prime Minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd now has permission to change the country's status from a constitutional monarchy under the British Crown to a republic with its chief of state. And, more important than , Verwoerd and his government of White supremacists have, in effect, been given a mandate to tighten the screws of apartheid on the 12,000,- non-Whites. One wonders, after early 13 years of Nationalist apartheid rule, whether it is possible to tighten the screws any other in South Africa. But Verwoerd certainly going to try.

The aim of this article is to examine the significance of the decision in favor of a republic the rule of apartheid, to trace what problems the Verwoerd regime now has to face at and abroad, and to indicate how the realization of a republic could considerably weaken Verwoerd regime.

Apartheid ("apart-hate") means total segregation. To more than half of the 3,000,000 Whites, mainly the Afrikaners of Dutch descent, apartheid offers what they honestly believe to the only hope of preventing their "culture"-- call it "Western Civilization"--from being vamped by the non-Whites: the ten million Africans (Blacks), one and a half million Colleds (a mixture of White and Black), half-million Indians.

In fact, apartheid is a combination of hatred, , fear, and ignorance. Although its propagandists, some of whom greatly admired Adolph Hitler, claim that it means "equal, but Separate" opportunity for the non-Whites in their own areas; in reality it means discrimination against the non-Whites in every sphere of economic, political, and social activity.

To the non-Whites, apartheid is many things: police raids for illicit liquor and for people who do not carry the "passes" which control the movement of every African.

Apartheid has closed the doors of the multi- universities to all but Whites and has so destroyed the very concept of academic freedom. has deprived the Africans of what little indirect representation they had, through White liberals, in the Parliament.

Apartheid will soon prevent the clothes of a black or Colored man from being washed in the laundromat machine as a White's. Black Beauty was banned until it was established that Black Beauty was a horse. Physical contact between Whites and Blacks is outlawed; couples who have been living together as man and wife or as long as 30 years have been separated and charged with "immorality."

Apartheid is "job reservation" which reserves many of the skilled jobs for White workers and determines lower rates of pay for Blacks who do the same work as Whites.

One could list many examples to make the point: apartheid has tentacles which creep into very home, and under many beds.

This, then, is apartheid. The result of the ref- endum shows that despite all the misery and suffering, the majority of Whites want more apartheid. And that is what Dr. Verwoerd, a shrewd mass psychologist (his docttorate subject was psychology), offered them when he asked them to approve of his plan for a republic.

The single shouted word, "Lumumba," probably earned the Republicans more votes than any other slogan in their extensive campaign, according to Stanley Uys, special correspondent for the Christian Science Montor. At one Johannesburg polling station, Republicans brandished Liberal Party posters showing a white hand clasping a black hand. They asked: "Do you want South Africa to be ruled by these Kaffir-lovers?"

It should be stressed that not all White South Africans supported the Republic: Verwoerd's majority was only about 52 per cent. Most of those who rejected Verwoerd's republic plans were English speaking people; a few were Afrikaners.

The anti-republicans rejected Verwoerd's appeal for "White unity" to strengthen him in his "struggle" against the non-Whites; they refused to be stampeded by Nationalist propaganda that a second Congo situation would develop if concessions were made to the non-Whites. But the greatest fear of the anti-republicans was that the Nationalists would carry out threats, made by their extremist spokesmen, to discriminate against the English-speaking people in the new republic.

Nevertheless, Verwoerd's regime has been strengthened by the referendum; his followers are triumphant; they want action. Which leads to the question: What happens after the republic is launched next year?

Verwoerd and his government will have to face threats at home and abroad. Their greatest problem will concern South Africa's relations with the British Commonwealth.

When South Africa becomes a republic it will automatically lost its status as a member of the Commonwealth. In offering the electorate a republic Verwoerd promised that South Africa would be readmitted to the Commonwealth as a republic, on the same basis that Ghana and India were. He did this to assure the voters that South Africa would not lose the trade benefits it enjoys through the tariff concessions accorded to all Commonwealth countries.

Readmission to the Commonwealth "club" requires the unanimous consent of all the members. Ghana, India, and the other Afro-Asian members of the "club," however, will almost certainly refuse to allow South Africa to rejoin. Ghana, along with various other countries, is already boycotting South Africa goods in an attempt to get the Nationalists to change their policies and accord rights to the non-Whites. This boycott has not had much effect on the economy of South Africa; the few who have lost their jobs have been non-Whites. But loss of Commonwealth trade preferences would plunge South Africa into a depression, hitting not only the Black workers, but also the White wool and fruit farmers who thrive today as a result of Commonwealth membership.

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan undoubtedly wants South Africa to remain inside the Commonwealth--Tory supporters in England have a great stake in the South African gold industry, and their investment should, at all costs, be protected.

If South Africa is thrown into the economic wilderness by a refusal of the Afro-Asian states to allow her to remain inside the Common wealth, it would also lose the protection now guaranteed in the defense pacts with Britain and other Commonwealth countries.

South Africa would become the target for any alliance of independent Black states which might seek to liberate the Africans in the new republic and at the same time find grounds for closer unity. It is unlikely that a task force composed of Ghanian, Nigerian or Indian troops would ever invade South Africa, but the mere existence of a liberatory movement up north would cause panic among the Whites.