WHITE POVERTY IN AFRICA

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 39, 15 February 1930, Page 14

WHITE POVERTY IN AFRICA

At least 1,600,000 white people,in the Union of South, Africa are living below] the poverty line. In the towns poverty among the whites does not obtrude itself, but in the barren backveldt a great mass of the population is. ekeing out a pitiful existence. The problem of white poverty in a country wher^e the black man outnumbers the white by nearly-seven to one is one of the most serious which faco. the South African Government.' . Eevelations of tlie life of the poorest class of whites have been made by Dr.: Malherbo, who has served as. a member of tho research committee to. the British Association. He has collected hundreds of • biographies, and has examined about 5000 children in fifty schools. In one of the schools not one child, even in the highest classes, could find' South Africa on tho map. He gave many instances of the almost incredible ignorance which prevails in many of the schools outside the big South .African towns. Most of the poor whites are Dutchspeaking, and none of them has received any education beyond elementary knowledge in : the veldt schools. Dr. Malherbe declared that tho whito man was resorting to measures which would jeopardise tfie wliole of Soutli Africa's economic future, and that of the .white man in particular. "Such measures as are proposed," he said, "will in time rob the dominating race of the virility bred from the. buffeting of stern competition, and will render it soft and weak when the nemesis comes. History has shown that Nature selects the coddled, privileged class of any country for destruction."