SOUTH AFRICA

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 118, 21 May 1930, Page 6

SOUTH AFRICA

THE COLOUR QUESTION

OBJECTIONS TO EQUALITY

"South Africa" was the subject of an address by Mr. W. H. Alexander at tlio annual' meeting of tlio Society of Friends. "The traveller who lands in Sydney, Wellington, or other port in these lands finds himself in social surroundings practically similar to those in England," he said. "But to land at Capo Town or Durban brings a shock of strangeness. There one meets at every turn dark-skinned people who do all the rough work of port, and town. Although New Zealand has inhabitants of aboriginal blood, they form but a small part of tlio population, and have long been accorded security of possessions and political rights." The widespread Union of South Africa had about ono and throe quarter million white inhabitants, but there wero about five million.Bantu natives, and half a million persons of Asiatic or o£ mixed blood, including the "Capo Coloured." Except in the Cape province (the old Cape Colony), none except the minority of European blood had any political franchise, and the present Government was proposing to disfranchise the natives in that province also. The education of those- millions of natives had been almost entirely left to missionary bodies, with varying monetary grants from.the provincial governments. Of late years these had been fairly liberal in Capo Province and Natal, but disgracefully limited in the Free State and Transvaal. The- Bantu were showing, however, that given the opportunity their intellectual powers were in no way inferior, and were demanding that their race should be given "freedom of opportunity." The opposition to this came ;along three lines. First, the original Butch settlers had looked upon South Africa as given to them by God, as Canaan was given to the Israelites, and its in-habitants-were to bo evermore their servants. In the Constitution of the Dutch Republics of Free State and Transvaal it had been written, "There shall never, bo equality in Church or State between black and white"—and this mcntality'still held in the average South African of Dutch blood. Secondly, the skilled workors in the mining and many other trade unions wero afraid of the competition of coloured and native labour lowering the standard of living. They had sought to counter this by colour ban legislation forbidding the employment of non-Europeans in all the higher lines of work. Thirdly, the large farming class was anxious to have ample supplies of "cheap labour," and were urging legislation to-day which would practically reduce a large part of the natives to serfage. The white population was fairly evenly divided.between Dutch and British blood. The growth of a homogeneous whito people, however, had been greatly complicated by the development of the diamond and gold mines, introducing people- who had come only to make money and leave, never looking upon South Africa as their permanent home. This had led to the growth of nationalism being associated chiefly with the Dutch, to the creation of the Afrikaans language, bi-lingual teaching in all schools, the demand for familiarity with the two tongues in all public officials, and even a style of a/chitecture. The problems of life in such a land were very difficult. It was comparatively easy to • shut ono's eyes to the moral and Christian issues involved and enjoy the sunshine..of? the climate, the facilities offered by "cheap, abundant labour," and the amenities of a ruling caste. But" life in South Africa was life over a social volcano where a.latent dread was-.-ever; at: the back of the mind, and tho future of that land of many races presented a problem to which the Christian church could not shut its eyes ' much longer.