RACE TROUBLES IN AMERICA.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 2609, 1 April 1891, Page 4

RACE TROUBLES IN AMERICA.

Our cousins in the United States of America have do i-xeniption from racial troubles. TJiejy have on hand two extremely tio&lish questions. It is impossible* to doubt a settlement of them will b%reiched. It is equally impossible to doubt that in one case the certain issue will be deplorably sad. In the other case the upshot is uncertain, difficult, and will have far-reaching consequences. According to the late census there are still in the States about one quarter of a million of Redskins. They are undesirable neighbours. The romantic pictures of them wherewith Fenimore Cx>per clian ned the boyhood' of a past generation have few counterparts in pre^ent There are among them mefftJt intellect, eloquence, and splendid courtesy; but the majority are tneivish, dissolute, and cruel. For the development of this bad character they are not wholly to blame. It has to a large extent been forced upon them, now by artful excitement, anon by unscrupulous ripine. Drink and spoliation are the two great handles by which the mischief has Yjeen wrought. "Firewater" has baen introduced, has produced an unnatural craving of prodigious intensity, and has been productive of very debasing effects. Then they have been robbed, cornered, drivenfarther and farther back, till now the continuous encroachments, of of an aggressive and imperious civilisation have left them almost desolate, with hardly room to turn. They are withering before the advance of the White Man as did the Maoris of New Zealand, only not quite so rapidly. A like fate, it in plain, awaits both. It is in evidence on the authority of General Miles, the officer in command at Pine Ridge, the centre of the present disturbances, that the Indians in the region round about have been kept in a state of semi-starvation for two years. The same fact is reported, with many circumstantial details, by General Armstrong the Indian inspector, in a statement addressed to the Secretary of the Interior at Washington in April last, though it has only now seen the light. To understand the story it should be borne in mind that the Government, when compelling the Indians to shift on to waste and poor land undertook to compensate them by granting allowances of food and blankets. It was contracted that from the Pine Ridge Agency no less than five million pounds of beef should be distributed annually. Complaints were made of this allowance being miserably scrimped, They were answered by an edict which arbitrarily reduced the supply by a fifth. It was issued when a third of the fiscal year had passed. Therefore, to keep the account square, the balance for distribution in the remaining nine months was farther stinted, a million pounds being deducted from, the odd three and a half millions. Other instances which inipjiy a violation of plighted troth might be Mi ted; but this Was the worst, and it excited the greatest indignation* No one will say that the project of maintaining a big community of vagrant paupers by a gigantic system of outdoor relief was wise; but it was assuredly wrong to get out of responsibility by a resort to deception fraud. It has provoked a great outburst of hostility which has spread over the Indian population. They have taking to raiding, have prepared themselves to fight, announce they are ready for whatever may befall, and are sustaining their courage by a recourse to superstitious rites— among them a performance of the "Ghost Dance," which appears to be a kind of Carmagnole. General Miles has behaved with commendable restraint, though what the end will be should he be forced to act is beyond qi\<^tion. The Red Man will be brought nearer extinction; and the sardonic couiisel of Horace Greeley when asked about tl:e best way to civilise the race^ — "Catch Ihe youny ones early, and knock the old ones on the head"-— will be put to a practical test. The Negro question is far bigger and more difficult than the Indian one. It is to be hoped however, a pacific settlement may be reached through the operation of natural causes. The trouble is that while the Southern wEite has learned to reconcile himself to free labour he remains unable to stomach the idea of civil equality. His dislike, unless his strength be reinforced, cannot long prevail under a Constitution like that of the States, or against a race who can work and thrive under conditions which enervate him".