“WHITER” AFRICA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 27 July 1925, Page 10

“WHITER” AFRICA.

NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

DEALING WITH THE BLACK

PROBLEM

There is now being applied in South Africa the first instillment of a new economic nolicy which aims at the social a nd* industrial reconstruction ol the country upon a different foundation. The experiment is the most important ever undertaken in the sulicontinent. It proposes to build up within the British Commonwealth a new white nation in place of the coloured one which is to-day plainly emerging in Southern Africa. General Hertzog s NationalistLabour Government is pledged to the white mail ideal. It is definitely committed to an attempt to prevent that ultimate numerical swamping ol the white race by the coloured, which is inevitable under a- more continuance of existing conditions. Upon that danger the 1921 census report in the Union, issued last year, sounds a remarkable warning. And so the new Government has promised to find a remedy for the evil of poor wiiiteism, which has attained such dimensions that every tenth person o: European descent in the Union is classed "as indigent, and also to entrench the white race more securely against the rising tide'of colour. Machinery ior the task has been set up in the form of a new Department ot Labour. The Minister in charge is Colonel Cresweli, who has for a quarter of a century been the chief protagonist of the white man ideal in the Transvaal. The official head is Air. C W. Cousins, who, as director of the 1821 census, wrote the disquieting report predicting the ultimate predominance ‘of the coloured races in South Afric-a, -which must be the result of a policy of drift. The department's aim is threefold: (1) To find work for tiie many white unemployed. (2) To bring about the social and economic regeneration ox the poor whites, now estimated to niimber at least 160,00.).

(3) To strengthen the white race numerically and industrially.

Every manual labour employing de-‘ partment of the Government is making a definite attempt to find places foi more white men. The new protective tariff will permit of pieferenres being given to iiiclustries employing a large percentage of white labour. There is also a Wage Bill before Parliament, aiming at the statutory enforcement of a “civilised wage” and “civilised standards” in certain industrial activities, the admitted object being to secure such an equality of conditions that the present inducement upon employers to give a preference to cheap coloured labour will be removed. Finally, the Labour wing of the Government looks forward to the ultimate prohibition of the importation of some 90,017) Tvtozambique natives for the gold mines and to the sweeping away of the Pass Law regulations and other enactments which, it is claimed, make black labour cheaper and more docile than white, and therefore restrict the employment of Europeans. Whether Labour will be able to persuade its Nationalist allies, who ar e mainly black labour-loving farmers, to advance as far as that is, however, very doubtful. One has no disposition to quarrel with the objective of the new policy, for the trend in all British South Africa toward an overwhelming preponderance of the coloured people is quite obviously dangerous. But there is reason to fear that the inherent economic unsoundness of the great experiment will prevent the result-. for which its originators look. Bloudly, the new policy will increase the cost of living. Its advocates deny this; yet higher wages and a more drastic protection policy can scarcely have anr Other cfiect. There is, too, no evidence of a spirit of economy it; the new Administration. Bailway revenue has risen, but owing to the heavier cost of the “civilised standards” policy no further reduction in transport charges has been made. I he general tendency in .South Africa is to maintain the high production costs, which have restricted development ior many years. Hut the outstanding obstacle to the success of tbe new policy is th e fact that South Africa is naturally a poor country. From the earliest days of white settlement, more than two and a half centuries ago, rapid expansion has been prevented by the niggardliness of nature. Southern Africa bulks large on the map. but the percentage •A lertPe soil in it- is relatively small. The crop out-turn per acre in the Union i*s almost the lowest in the world. The good land is found only in Hatches even in the best districts. ’] his patchiness extends down to individual farms. The heavy use of for--11 ilisers and more efficient farming will in time raise the out-turn per acre,

but the reports of the Government s own agricultural experts do not suggest that the cropping capacity of the country will, ever be high. Ihe economic condition of South Africa.,between 1652 and 1870 show plainly that agriculturally it is a rather poor country. The impression of national wealth was given by the gold and diamond discoveries” in the ’seventies and ’nineties of last century. It was then that the standard of comfort rose rapidly in what had hitherto been a very primitive niitl hnrsh-conditioiiod jmihl. Wage rates for skilled labour .soared ever’unward. But the sudden improve, ment was du e largely to vast capital expenditure in a thinly-peopled country. Money flowed in for mining enterprises and railway construction. Jho white rural population benefited, hut there was no rapid improvement in the standard of production, and development continued to lie based upon the use of coloured labour ior- all save skilled work. Under this system there have been opened up gold mines, in which the grade of ore is low; and the continued working of propositions of this class still demands cheap production. 1 Yet it is upon this slender foundation that -the new policy proposes to erect a superstructure of high wages, high'standards of living, and high cost of production. In reality the dflort amounts-to trying to get out of the country more than there is in it. lhat being economically impossible, the application of the new methods must pioduce results very different from those hoped for. It may h c possible to establish favoured classes of white workers for whom the law will demand wages based upon an American scale. But the ultimate result will be merely a redistribution of incomes and “civilised standards.” As one section of the imputation will he given more, the balance must inevitable receive less, l-oi-there, is behind the new policy no promise of larger national production, and no assurance of greater elliciency or increased output per head.