THE NATIVE PROBLEM IN SOUTH AFRICA

THE

HE views as to the native question in South Africa are as numerous as the various interests concerned and the different sections of the population. Quot partes, tot responsa.

To the agriculturist the lusty, muscular native labourer is essential to relieve him of activities of a strenuous and primitive kind that have come to be regarded as unsuitable for the white man in a sub-tropical climate; for him the problem is how to command a sufficiency of native labour at as low a rate as possible. Again, the mining industries, particularly the gold mines, are dependent on a regular supply of native underground workers, and the problem for them is increased by the necessity for the compound system, which involves the indenture of the native employee for a fixed number of months, with the result that only a certain percentage of the available men are employed at one time. The native who binds himself for a six or nine months' contract returns to his kraal, and is unwilling to come out again till hunger or necessity compels him. Private employers, the railways and municipalities can count on a steadier and less fluctuating supply of native labour, especially when the proximity of a location (i.e., native village) assures uninterrupted home-life for the native. The domestic native labour supply, like that on the mines, represents only a certain percentage of what is available, owing to the married native returning periodically for a few months to his kraal.

The position of the native in relation to all these employing agencies is technically that of a free labourer, able to dispose of his service at will. An exception to this exists-whether legally enforceable or not-in the recognised condition attached to "squatting" on some farms, whereby the native renders certain periods of service to the owner, whether on the farm itself or as a domestic in the town house. A more or less uniform standard of wage has come to be recognised in all these forms of work, varying somewhat in different localities, according to the price at which the white employer finds he can get the employees he

wants. A beginning is only just being made in collective bargaining, as in the recent negotiations between the Bloemfontein municipality and its native employees.

When it is said that the native is in the position of a free labourer, the statement is true until he makes his choice and accepts service with certain restrictive conditions. He may come under an obligation not to leave the compound or mine to which he is attached for the whole period of his indenture,* or only at certain times; or he may have to carry a monthly or special pass, and observe restrictions as to when he may be out of bounds or in the streets. Again he may have to take out a travelling pass to enable him to seek work or to return from it. Underlying all these restrictions on freedom of movement in such parts of the Union as they apply, there is of course the assumption that the native is an inferior being, whose uncontrolled liberty would be a menace to the rest of the community. That the native's acquiescence in this theory that he is a potentially dangerous person is not voluntary, goes without saying. In the greater part of the Union he is politically impotent, and any other form of effective protest or resistance is barred to him, first through traditional tribal jealousies and divisions and differences of language that make unity of action impracticable, and secondly because his congenital laziness and improvidence keep him in a state of handto-mouth existence when he is periodically compelled to work in order to live-beggars cannot be choosers. Incidentally a hut or poll tax that bears a large proportion to his total possible earnings must be paid to a Government that recognises the possibility of a justifiable plea of indigence in the case of a white man, but in the case of a native very seldom.

That the maintenance of all these varieties of restriction and repression can be anything else than transitional in regard to a race that is struggling, however slowly and painfully, to emerge from barbarism to a higher stage of civilisation, should surely be evident to a wise statesmanship in the governing white caste, who, even if they are unsympathetic, should have enough sense to refrain from aggravating such a situation. The native is becoming more keenly alive to the inequality—and what to him must appear the injustice of his present position, and the

*As in the Kimberley diamond mines but not in the gold mines.

VOL. 244. NO. 497.

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nethermost pit is active in strewing the whole world at this time with doctrines disruptive of our established civilisation. Where could a better field be found for the poisonous agitator, black or white, than among a race suffering from a smattering of knowledge -the worst form of ignorance—and becoming embittered by a sense of injustice and oppression? And yet this is the time selected by "responsible " ministers for erecting by the Colour Bar Act an insurmountable barrier to any possibility of progress in industrial capacity by the native, on the bare ground of the colour of his skin. This is not hasty or panic legislation, conceived and executed in a frenzy of fear or surprise, but the result of a coldly calculated policy.

Next, let us consider the native question as it presents itself to philanthropic agencies that have a point of view other than that of self-interest. Obedient to their Master's command that the gospel is to be preached to all nations, the missionary societies of various bodies of Christians have made it their business to uproot barbaric and heathenish superstitions among the backward races, and to replace them by the healthful principles of the Christian religion. The pioneer stages of this work involved physical hardships and dangers of an extraordinary kind, and the names of Livingstone, Moffat, Mackenzie and Stewart stand out, not only as examples of self-denying heroism, but as types of statesmanlike power that we have not with us to-day. The present missionary field does not give scope for the exercise of heroic intrepidity in the face of danger and death. It may be that we should still find successors to these great figures, were the opportunity given to bring them out; but they are not in evidence, and the native cause is the poorer for the lack of them.

So far as religious teaching is concerned, the efforts of the missionaries have not always met with much support from Europeans in South Africa, and possibly part of this lukewarmness, or hostility, may be due to the indiscretion of the teaching. man's a man for a' that " has wrought more mischief among white folk than its author could ever have contemplated. Tell a man at the bottom of the scale of civilisation and intelligence that he is the equal of a duke, and he immediately suspects that he is far better, and tends to act accordingly. And, similarly, the broadcasting among degraded races of the theory that all men are equal in the sight of God tends to lead to just that assertiveness that the

white man calls impudence, and proceeds to club out of the offending native.

of

But the missionary has by no means confined himself to inculcating religious principles. He has done very much to improve the social condition of the native, to encourage him to construct a better house for himself, and generally to aspire to the habits and conditions of civilised life. In this connection most difficulty has been found in regard to education, where paltry aid only has been furnished by government, mostly in the shape meagre grants towards teachers' salaries. Buildings and equipment have been almost entirely provided by the natives themselves, with such aid as can be spared from missionary funds. Far more sympathy and assistance have been forthcoming in the Cape than in other provinces of the Union, and too often in the Northern provinces one hears such remarks as, " Oh, there is far too much book-learning among the natives; what they need is industrial instruction!" And such utterances are not merely what Disraeli called "the harebrained chatter of irresponsible frivolity," but the publicly pronounced opinions of professional and educated men. Only the completest ignorance of all the facts could excuse such opinions or utterances. The people who use these phrases probably do not trouble to discover that, in spite of an increasing desire for education among the natives, only a small percentage of their children are to be found in the schools, and of these only a very small proportion get far up in the standards.* Is this 'book-learning" of a menacing character? Again, do these people believe that any industrial worker, black or white, is likely to be efficient if he is ignorant of the "three R's "? Further, have they taken the trouble to discover that industrial instruction is the most expensive of all, and that it is more than doubtful whether experiments in this direction have justified the outlay in the case of white pupils? The pity is that such educated people tend, unwittingly perhaps, to throw their weight on the side of the more brutal policy, embodied in the language of the degraded white," make the brutes (?) work!"

Again, in relation to the native's effort to advance in civilisation, and, as a means thereto, to acquire the language of the Empire

*Two and a half millions of natives-more than half the total number-are classified as "of no religion," and therefore presumably entirely without education.

to which he belongs, we find obstructive arguments employed, urging that the psychological method is to employ the mother tongue of the native child, though the mother tongue of even the most advanced native peoples cannot possibly be employed even for the teaching of elementary arithmetic, while some of the lower dialects have no expression for anything beyond five. This talk of psychology and the mother tongue comes, as a rule, from those whose purpose it is to prevent the native learning English, but it frequently affects even English missionaries who are afraid to confess ignorance of that much abused term psychology. Unfortunately the man-in-the-street has a prejudice against the native's desire for education, and the newspaper correspondent, with the modern tendency to exploit a sensational stunt rather than the truth, too frequently ministers to this prejudice by reporting in startling headlines the delinquencies of the "educated native," as if the frequent association in South Africa of ability with rascality were specially distinctive of the native. Not only do the more privileged whites grudge a pittance to advance the civilisation of their less fortunate black brethren, but they view with suspicion and fear the feeble efforts the latter make at their own cost to better their condition.

In order to estimate political developments in regard to the native question, it is necessary to lay hold of certain facts of population and race distribution in South Africa. The census of 1921 shews a total population of nearly 7,000,000, of whom approximately 1,520,000 are European, 4,700,000 natives, 164,000 Asiatics, and 545,000 of mixed and other nationality. The approximate percentages are European 22, native 68, Asiatic nearly 2, and mixed roughly 71.

Of the total population of the Union, the Cape Province contains 40 per cent., Natal roughly 21 per cent., Transvaal 30 per cent., and Orange Free State 9 per cent. The only means of estimating the relations of the various European elements is to refer to the numbers given under the different religious denominations. The Dutch churches total 839,000, the Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and other Christian bodies together, under 600,000, Jewish about 61,000. This would indicate that, at the least computation, 55 per cent. of the total white population are of Dutch extraction, and about 40 per cent. of British extraction.