Apertheid

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29061, 25 November 1959, Page 7

Apertheid

Sir,—Three hundred years ago King Charles H himaelf was engaged in the development of the African slave trade and the handsome profits derived therefrom. This point of that ghastly trade has not been assimilated by “Phlanker. M To make sure, I consulted a trading company prospectus, which might have been printed in blood and tears. It says: “The Spaniards treated the Royal African Company of England for 5000 whole pieces of India the Year, for seven years. Such a Trade as this made by act of Parliament for 99 years certain, would improve all our Western Plantations: t’will brin gus in gold apace to make Guineas with....” No wonder the Bantu fled across the Limpopo river, only to meet the rhinoceros whips of the gentle ancestors of the Dutch apartheid experts.—Yours, etc., RALPH S. WHEELER. Timaru, November 24, 1959.

Sir,—l do not regard the native as a dark-skinned European, but as a dark-skinned human being. Black and white are both human beings. Mr Thompson’s own admission that apartheid would be unjustifiable if the natives were merely dark-skinned Europeans applies to this. Black and white have equal rights and dignity. They have the same feelings, same inclinations, same rational souls. What right have the whites to practise injustice on fellow human beings? If the natives have a superstitious psychology, segregation would maintain this instead of banishing it. Integration with the whites in work, play, and education would slowly but surely civilise the minds of the natives. The natives need help, not hate; justice, not injustice; equal pay for equal work, not less wages for the same work. The whites are practising strict, strong, inflexible tyranny, and we all know what eventually happens to tyrants.—Yours, etc., A.M. November 24, 1959.

Sir, —The current discussions on South African racial problems and the recent proposals for establishing native states within the Union recall the seventeenth century Irish problems, of which John Buchan made the following comment in his historical masterpiece, “Oliver Cromwell,” Book IV, ch. 2: “Any scheme of government based solely on the interests of the resident alien is doomed in the long run to failure, unless by massacre and; banishment such aliens are made the bulk of the population. Oliver’s conception was simple. Ireland was to be an appanage of England, governed by Englishmen, and the native Irish were awkward chattels to be moved about at their superiors’ pleasure.” —Yours, etc., A. THOUGHT. November 24, 1959. [“Student” may briefly reply; otherwise this correspondence is closed—Ed., “The Press.”]