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custom prevailing on the wine farms of giving large allowances of wine as part of wages. One farmer the writer knows has stood out against this, with excellent results, and probably the coloured people will overcome the curse of drunkenness in time, as other races have. Indeed apart from the unexpected result of the last census there seems no reason to suppose them to be an unhealthy or unviable compound.

(d) Persistence side by side. The actual problem is with regard to the northern areas where white and Bantu are living together, and have not yet mixed to any appreciable extent. The question of the viability of the hybrid is chiefly of interest for possibilities of the distant future in this region. Present policy is that of keeping the two races distinct, and even of keeping them on a different footing as to civil rights. But one's thoughts naturally turn to the history of conquering and servile races in the past: so far as the writer knows there is no instance in which they have not amalgamated in a period short in the history of a nation. Probably the mixture has been due to economic influences very similar to those now at work in South Africa.

The whites need the natives: they have established a society in which the lower grade work is done by natives, and selfinterest thus impels the whites to offer inducements sufficient to attract an adequate supply of native labour. As industries expand, and as the native becomes more efficient, the price of native labour rises: this has been the complaint of employers in all ages, and it is that of South African farmers to-day. The policy of the dominant race, and particularly of its extreme exponents, who are influential with the present Government, seems thus to be involved in a dilemma. Either the wide disparity between white and native incomes will persist, or it will not. If native wages are to be kept down, despite growth in education and industrial experience, it can only be by force. Such a measure as the Colour Bar Act, which allows the Government to reserve specified occupations-naturally, well paid onesfor whites, rests, in the last resort, on military force. The Wages Act, passed last year, may be used as a further support for the same policy, though whether it will be depends on the way it is administered. But these measures not only involve the discontent of the whole native race, whose aspirations are

thwarted, but they run counter to the interests of the employing classes, who would not offer higher wages to natives unless they found it to their advantage to do so. It would in fact, be very difficult to keep up for long a disparity in position of the two races at variance with the economic conditions. There is also the rising education of the natives to consider, which will enable them to exercise more pressure by the familiar methods of trade unionism, and there is the opposition to a repressive policy on the part of the more liberal elements in the South African nation, not to mention the influence of opinion in the world outside. On the other hand, if the standard of earnings and the choice of occupations by natives is allowed to expand naturally, there will be progressive assimilation between the mode of life of white and native (as there has been in the United States) and the maintenance of a barrier against racemixture will become more artificial and more difficult.

Assimilation is, in fact, proceeding. The native is no longer content with the life of the kraal that his ancestors lived. A certain number of them are permanent residents in towns, and have lost touch with tribal life altogether; the majority are still country-bred and come to the towns and mines only to work for a few months at a time, but most of the adult male natives have had some experience of town life, and this exercises the same attraction on them as it does on the poorer classes, the world over. The Government now favours a policy of development of native life along its own lines and in districts reserved for native occupation; but it is late to try such an experiment. The native " boy " who dresses in cheap European clothes and wants a bicycle and a gramophone may have lost some of the virtues of barbarian life, and is not, to us, an attractive figure; but in his own eyes he has progressed, and he is probably right; at least it has yet to be shown that a better line of progress is open to him. A Johannesburg doctor, travelling in a remote part of the coast, came upon some natives whom he knew; they had returned from a nine months' contract as labourers on the mines, but instead of settling in their old village had put up a group of huts for themselves elsewhere. Asked the reason, they replied: "We cannot live with those savages."

Whilst the standard of native wages is slowly rising, there is, unhappily, a great deal of poverty among whites, some of

whom are living in conditions of squalor below those of the ordinary native. The Government is anxious to restore this class, and if the new Wages Act serves any useful purpose it should be in helping the poorer whites to secure better wages. The situation is clearest in manufacturing industries where there has been but little State interference, and where the frequent modification of processes makes it difficult to interfere by regulation with the employment of particular classes. Employers are therefore free to offer wages in accordance with the value of work done, and while whites nearly always hold the more responsible positions, there are many cases of white and coloured working side by side.

On the whole it seems that an approximation between the economic position of the two races is inevitable; experience only can show to what extent the Bantu can rise in European civilisation.

(e) Segregation. This is the official policy of the Government, but the meaning of the term is very ill-defined. In the full sense of requiring the two races to live in different areas, it is impossible. The whole constitution of society in South Africa is built up on a basis of native labour. If the removal of natives from the areas in white occupation were suggested, apart from the hopeless magnitude of the task, the suggestion would be opposed (i) by the employers, including all the farmers, who would be unable to contemplate running their businesses without native labour, and (ii) by the white workmen, who maintain their standard of living by not having to undertake the inferior tasks, i.e., by at least 90 per cent. of the electorate.

Segregation, in practice, therefore means that the country is divided into distinct areas for ownership by whites and by natives; in the former natives who are employed by the white residents may live; in the latter only a few white men are allowed, as officials, professionals or traders. The native area, however, is less than a tenth of the whole. The policy may be said to date from an Act of 1913 passed by the late Government, under General Smuts. The aim of that Act was also to take a step in the direction of the separate development of the two races. Unfortunately the promise made by the Act to allocate suitable areas for native ownership has not been kept. When it comes to the point the opposition of private interests is too

strong, especially on the ground that if developed by white settlers the land will be made much more productive.

It is naturally feared that any new measure of the same kind will fail in practice; but it is generally recognised that some extension of the area for native ownership, in which consequently native institutions have free play for development, is urgently needed. The land through most of the Union should not be regarded as having ever been taken from the natives, for they do not settle spontaneously in the colder and drier parts; but they have been dispossessed of some areas. The policy of segregation of ownership is rendered difficult by the interpenetration of the two races: the native areas proposed under the Act of 1913 are mostly small pieces scattered all over the country. There has been no proposal that one province should be kept for whites and another for natives. The Australian ideal has been talked about by a few enthusiasts, but they have never faced the real difficulties involved.

It may be suggested that if a considerable majority of the white inhabitants of any magisterial district expressed a desire for real segregation in that district, Parliament should authorise the exclusion of natives from it, giving suitable compensation to those living there, and helping them to find a home elsewhere. This would afford an opportunity of testing the policy of "White South Africa" on a small scale. But there is only a small portion of the Cape Province in which the white population is in a majority, and it is very unlikely that a plebiscite in favour of dispensing with native labourers would be carried. If it were voted and carried out in a suitable manner, in some of the parts more favourable to Europeans, it would not be an injustice to the natives, provided that the promise of more land for them were carried out. The most satisfactory feature of the situation at present is the progress made by the natives in the Transkei; the land there belongs to them, white settlers are not allowed, and some measure of local self-government exists. One is glad to know that the Hertzog Government proposes to extend this system.

Reviewing these diverse possibilities, it seems likely that throughout the bulk of South Africa the two races will continue to live together, and that the standards of living and of education of the two will slowly come nearer together. Justice to the native

race demands that no obstacle should be put in the way of this. If the whites are unable to dispense with their assistance, there should be no repressive legislation; the semi-servile condition in which they are now placed in some of the provinces cannot be justified in a world where public opinion has long since decided that slavery is intolerable. The restrictions of the Pass Laws should be reduced to the minimum needed for public safety, and the greatest care should be taken to secure equal treatment for all races in the courts of justice.

All this does not imply the concession of political rights to natives. The great majority are quite unfitted for that, and the European people, who, after all, are the creators of civilization in the country, could not possibly contemplate placing it at the mercy of a black majority in the electorate. Some scheme for separate representation of the wishes of the natives, such as that outlined by General Hertzog, is needed. What further advance may be demanded as a consequence of their growth in civilization, is a matter for a future generation. What is needed now is a policy of equal opportunity, with free individual and social development, in districts where the two races live side by side. This would not interfere with either the spontaneous progress of the purely native areas, such as Transkei, or with the white ideal in any area that found the courage to espouse it.

Race mixture is probably inevitable in the long run; but it is not sought after by natives any more than by Europeans, and is therefore not an immediate question. If the natives are given opportunity to raise themselves in culture, and turn out to be capable of it, intermarriage will assume a different aspect from that which it presents to us now. The remote risk of the upgrowth of a mixed race should not, in any case, be made an excuse for repression or unfairness.

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