out Imperial aid. Unless the black comes to outnumber the white to a vastly greater extent than he does now, there can never be a doubt as to the result of any hostilities between Kafir tribes and the combined forces of the British and Dutch Africanders. Some authorities hold that the day of Kafir wars is at an end; that the lessons inflicted in the past, and the gradual change which has come over the great tribes, have laid that spectre for ever. Others say that the danger is by no means over; that the ill-advised treatment of the natives by politicians and missionaries, notably of late by the American negro missionaries, is stirring up a very unpleasant feeling among the black population. However this may be, the forces of South Africa are no doubt capable of maintaining order.

But that is only a secondary and comparatively unimportant part of the question. When the policing of the country has been secured the real problem remains to be faced. It is unnecessary to complicate matters by considering separately the position of the "coloured" man. This, too, is a serious question in itself, but the native question is the real problem and practically includes the other. It is one of extreme difficulty. In South Africa "two societies are established side by side, the smaller drawn from the most advanced races, and the larger from the most backward ones in the scale of human development."

Those races can never mix

and become one as Dutch and British may mix and become one. If they were to do so the higher would be swamped by the lower, and South Africa would be ruined for all time. But the thing can never be. In South Africa, as elsewhere, the white race would shrink from such an idea with horror.

In these circumstances innumerable suggestions have been made, -for the problem is one which faces the South African at every turn. Perhaps, as the circumstances in South Africa are altogether exceptional, the best way of considering it is to let that very able paper, 'The State,' explain the situation from a South African point of view:

"Theorists on the native problem may be divided into two schools.

"Firstly, there are those who believe that the native cannot absorb Western ideas, and therefore must progress along lines of his own, desystem which are suited to the conveloping a language and a political ceptions of Government and Society of which he is capable. According to their theory the great bulk of the natives in the future will live in reserves, with their own artisans, engineers, doctors, officials, merchants, and other classes of the social hier archy, according to the measures of their progress. In these reserves few of the white paramount power, like white men-mostly representatives magistrates-will be allowed to reside. They will be given over entirely to the development of Native States, subject to the general supervision of the white man. The white races, on the other hand, will live upon the high veldt and in the southern portion of the continent, employing a certain number of native

labourers who come out from the reserves for a time to work, but depending to a larger extent than they do to-day on white labour. Natives will

not be allowed to acquire property or a domicile in the white man's country.

'Secondly, there are those who believe that with time and education the native can be trained to take his place as a fellow-citizen of the white man, that he will leave his own reserves in ever-increasing numbers and come to live among the white men, and that the white population itself will never be able to do

without a large and constant supply of coloured labour. They look forward ultimately to the complete political and economic intermingling of

the two races.

"These are the extreme views, and there are many intermediate counsels. There are also many other factors to be considered, notably the relative

rate of increase in the white and the

black populations. But it is possible to class each of the multitudes of solutions of the native problem either as being designed to maintain a separation between the two races, or to level up the lower race to the higher."

'The State' does not pretend to decide upon the respective merits of these two policies, of assimilation and segregation; but it holds that "the people of South Africa' will have to make up their minds on the subject eventnally.

Meanwhile it is interesting to inquire how far these opposite schools have applied their views in practice, and what has been the result. It appears on inquiry that before the union of South Africa the matter had been regarded in totally different lights, according to local circumstances. In Cape Colony, where the disproportion between the white and black races was not so great as in some other parts, the policy adopted had been that of assimilation. All special laws

applicable to the natives alone were being as far as possible eliminated; large sums were being spent on native education; and the native had the franchise on the same terms as the white man. The chief legal distinction left between the white man and the native was that there were special laws to protect the native from his passion for strong drink.

In Natal, where the white man was to the black man as one to ten, the policy was totally different. There was

no attempt at assimilation. There was a special body of law for natives, reduced to statutory form, which differed widely from the law applicable to white men; the British Governor was "Supreme Chief' over all natives; comparatively little was spent on native education; and the franchise was practically not granted. The white man could not afford to run any risks.

In the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, the former Dutch republics, though the natives were on the aggregate fewer in proportion to white men than in Cape Colony, they were treated more stringently than in Natal. They were not allowed to hold land; there was small expenditure on native education; and the franchise was limited to white men. The principle was that enunciated by the old Republican Assembly, "The people will not tolerate equality between coloured and white inhabitants either in Church or State. . .

In the British Protectorates, separate from the Colonies, a special system of administration was in force, a patriarchal system which aimed at treating the natives rather as a beneficent native chief would treat them.

But, underlying all these systems and theories for the treatment of the native in the future, what are the actual conditions which have evolved themselves? What are the relations between the white

man and the black? And -what has been the effect on the white man himself?

The question is answered by a South African writer in these words: "Caste has succeeded slavery." And the results of the former system are very serious to the white man as well as to the black. I think I cannot do better than quote the argument as set out by this writer :

theory takes no account of the fact that a certain proportion of whites their own in the sphere of skilled are born without the capacity to hold labour. In Europe and America such men can earn their living by rough manual toil, but the caste system finds no appropriate place for them.

"South Africa presents the strange and ominous spectacle of a country urgently in need of a population to fill it, and yet rapidly breeding a race of paupers on its own soil."

The picture is not overdrawn, far from it. The thing which strikes a traveller in South Africa most forcibly is the attitude taken up by the white man in this respect. Manual labour of every kind is "Kafir's work," and he will not touch it. This may perhaps be partly the result of climate, but not wholly or mainly. An Englishman who has never left England can hardly imagine the lengths to which the principle is carried. I am told by friends in South Africa that if they import English grooms for their stables the experiment is rarely successful. After a short time the men become infected with the local feeling, and say that they cannot groom the horses any more: grooming horses is Kafir's work." So it goes on. Your window is blown to by the wind and broken. Send word that you want it mended and watch what happens. If any notice is taken of your first request, which is doubtful, you will probably see in the course of the next few days a native arrive carrying the necessary materials. When he has been sitting in front of your house for some time a white man will appear on a bicycle. Then the

white man will sit in a chair and smoke, while the native mends the window.

So it is with everything. Sooner than do Kafir's work or accept a Kafir's wage, the white man will be content to do nothing, and live on charity. As the above-mentioned writer puts it: "He prefers what he imagines to be honourable indigence to degrading toil." I have heard of cases in which a white family has actually lived on the charity of Kafirs rather than do Kafir's work.

In the Southern States of the American Union slavery produced what the negroes used to call "po' white trash," and in South Africa the so-called "caste system" is doing the

same.

The book from which I have quoted1 goes on to show how the white Africander's attitude in this respect tends to exclude him from skilled labour also; "for physical labour is the school in which are learned the habits of industry and the rudiments of skill required by the trained craftsman. The result is that the majority of artisans required in South Africa have to be imported from oversea."

And the intelligent native, who will begin at the bottom and learn his business, is rising into the position of a skilled workman, and going over the head of the white man, who will not.

"Gradually the truth begins to assert itself that the effects of a caste system are almost as pernicious as those of slavery,

though the operation of the poison is more insidious and slow. No society which is not based on physical toil can long maintain its vigour; and one society cannot subsist for long upon the labour of another without developing the properties of a fungus."

The white man will not work himself and he will not let others work. If white labourers are imported they are infected in a few months, and "expect to be treated not as labourers but as overseers, and to be be paid as such."

"The practical outcome of the position is that South African employers are compelled to fall back upon the coloured labour of the country, and only such industries can be founded as are payable on this basis."

Take the case of agriculture. The white immigrant is soon taught the one great lesson— that he must not do Kafir's work. He never learns his business properly, and his farm fails.

Then the landowner finds it

pays him better to farm his land out to Kafirs. "In this way vast tracts in the Transvaal and Natal, which were originally divided into farms for white colonisation, are being brought under black settlement." And a white population is not established on the land.

A great deal more might be written on this subject, what Colquhoun calls the Black Cloud, which is really the

fundamental difficulty South Africa has to face and settle. It would almost seem as if a curse were upon the white man who tries to make his home in a country occupied by the black. He can subdue the black man, easily enough perhaps; but then his real trouble begins. Beaten and subdued, the black man unconsciously avenges himself by weaving about his white master toils which the white man seems unable to break.

She

She is not free from responsibility in the matter. It is earnestly to be hoped that she will not let her strong and generous feelings towards the black races lead her into the course of action which has done so much in the past to complicate the position.

The American "abolitionist " was not always fair to his brethren in the Southern States. His generous feeling towards the negro carried him away, and led him into acts which I think are now generally regarded by Americans as mistaken. So with us. Our people are not always fair to their brethren outside England. Some of us seem to

It is a most difficult problem. Although the Bushman and the Hottentot have almost disappeared, the Kafirs are too numerous and virile to follow their example. The solution of the black question has not been found even in America, nor does it seem likely to be found, though the problem is presented there under much easier conditions. Whether it will be found in South Africa time alone can tell.

It will be interesting to watch the result in the coming years, when South African statesmen can devote their energies to the question, but they will have a long and troublesome task before them. Great Britain will certainly look on with sympathy, and may be able to give some help.

minded oppressors brutally illtreating the "nigger." But the responsible white man who has to live with and manage the black population is of a wholly different type.

When the South African sets seriously to work to solve the great difficulty before him, it will be well for the British public to abstain from hasty interference or criticism. It is possible, though American experience does not point that way, that some measure of "segregation" may be found practicable. The application of that principle, if practicable, does not necessarily mean injustice or hardship to the native, but perhaps the very contrary. The maintenance on a large scale of protected native states and native reserves may be agreeable to the native himself. I have long believed that in India it might have been better for all concerned