The Hawera Star. MONDAY, MAY 17, 1926. THE COLOUR BAR IN AFRICA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 17 May 1926, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

MONDAY, MAY 17, 1926. THE COLOUR BAR IN AFRICA.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock iu Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltbam, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverlcy, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere. Fraser Hoad and Ar&rata.

Although overshadowed for the time being by strike news and accounts of polar flights, a cable message from Capo Town, which we published .last week, reported a decision of the Legislature which may have far-reaching effects on South African politics. At a joint session of the Senate and Assembly, it was decided, by S 3 votes to 37, to adopt tlio Colour Bar Bill, which restricts the sphere of labour for natives and other coloured people in certain skilled trades. Voting was strictly on party lines, which is not to be wondered at, seeing that General Smuts, Leader of the Opposition, lias referred to the Bill as ‘ a firebrand flung into a haystack. Churches and welfare organisations have protested loudly against the measure, and natives have left no doubt about their attitude, having publicly and with all seriousness burnt a copy of it. The controversy really dates from 1921. Until that time, the mines of the Rand debarred natives from skilled and semiskilled occupations; but in 1021 it was proposed, for reasons of economy, that natives should be employed in semiskilled work. The white workers resented. this change in policy, fearing that it was but the thin end of tlio wedge and forseeing an attempt to flood the mines with coloured labour. The oil Dutch stock —the backbone of the Nationalist Party in politics —has no time for the native black as anything more than a drawer of water and a hewer of wood, sogjNationalist and Labour came together over this question, and the pact which drove General Smuts from office was the direct outcome of the " anticoloured worker” strike on the Rand in 1922. Nationalists and Labourites aim to prevent natives from gaining entry to any occupation involving skill —and the National and Labour parties are behind this Bill. At first an attempt was made to set up the colour barrier by regulation, but the High Court upset the regulations as repugnant to the law of South. Africa. Now the Government is altering the law to impose, wliat one writer Has described as "permanent industrial servitude upon both native and Asiatic.” "It is a plan,” said General Smuts,” for ringfencing the whites with tlio hatred of the blacks of Africa and the yellows of Asia.” The South African (Opposition) Party has been strong enough in the Senate to block the measure hitherto, but the Pact Parties have a big majority when the two Houses sit in joint session. Tho Prime Minister, General Ilertzog, defends his Bill by explaining that he intends to promote schemes for attracting the natives back to tlieir ancestral lands, and to make them agriculturalists and craftsmen after tho native fashion, apart from the whites, thus effecting all the necessary economic changes to enable the two races to live side by side in harmony and without competition. But the natives wish to see the compensating concession in operation before they yield, .the place they have won in industry, lienee the opposition of their leaders to the Bill which, subject to Royal assent, lias become law by last week’s division in Parliament.