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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Business
Royce Kurmelovs

‘Race suicide’: Sir William Walkley’s unearthed report on apartheid South Africa reveals birthrate fears

William Walkley
Ampol founder William Walkley saw the low wages of South Africa’s ‘coloured service station attendants’ as an advantage of investing in the apartheid state. Photograph: SuperStock/Alamy

The Ampol founder, Sir William Walkley, derided apartheid South Africa’s failure to attract white migrants as “race suicide” in 1958 and warned the country faced a potential bloodbath if a communist leader emerged who was “perhaps a half-breed with the white man’s intelligence”.

The comments are contained in a report produced by Walkley – whose Walkley Foundation still runs Australia’s most prestigious media awards – on a four-week tour of South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to assess the prospects for Ampol expanding into those countries.

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