BLACK V. WHITE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XIX, Issue 2051, 4 December 1924, Page 6

BLACK V. WHITE.

PROBLEM IN SOUTH AFRICA. AS SEEN BY EX-NEW ZEALANDER, The problem of Black versus White in South Africa, before which all other social questions in the Union fade into insignificance, is discussed in an interesting letter received in Wellington from an ex-New Zealander who has taken up hi residence at Vereeniging, the town in the Transvaal where peace was signed after the Boer War. The great question, the writer states, is whether South Africa is to be Black or, White. At present a small white population of a million and a-half is ualing a counjtry with something like five coloured men to every white. The question of unemployment is inextricably mixed up with the colour question. Tbje difficulty is the same as that which confronted America in the days- before the Civil War, when tho lower part of the white population was degraded by negro slavery and a false aristocrady of poor whites arose in the Southern States who would not do "slave' or "nigger" work. Though slavery has been abolished there exists in South Africa the same false aristocracy. "It is so easy to have a native servant, male or female, at 30s or 40s per month to do all the dirty jobs," the writer states, "bat it means the ruination of the white. One has ta contend with it in one's own homo. The youngsters are so accustomed to calling on 'Jim' to do this and to do that, that they will shirk all the menial work they can. So loflig as reliance is placed on the coloured races to do the unskilled and manual labour of the country, the position will never be imit is so pleasant to have the hard work dope by others, and at so cheap a figure, that it is ontly the few earnet souls who look to posterity who want to alter the state of things. But the white population is standing still; only the very lowly or the 'irrespoinsibles' amongst the whites have large families to-day, and (unfortunately they are just the type one does not want increased. The native, however, is virile, has no thought for the morrow, and increases prodigiously. As for the 'off-coloured,' who in this question stand with the bjLacks, they are the result of the white man's sin, and having inherited all the irresponsibilities of their forbears, they, too, place no restraint on their increase. So that with the diminishing and the standingstill of the white race, we have the alarming increase of the black, and unless something is done to increase the white population, within a very few years we shall be swamped. The only way is to populate the country so thickly with whites that the blacks will be ait least ovinter-balanced, and unless this is done qfaiekly it will never he done at all. RISE OF THE BLACKS. "Natural evolution will in the course ij' a comparatively short time so raise the black that the poor white wilt sink below his level. Even now the black is keen on. getting education, in booklearning, and in learning trades. The result is that he is pushing his way into all sorts of avenues; we have black tradesmen —carpenters, bricklayers, messengers in office*, chaiuf;feurs, grooms, etc., while the white lads are looking fojr work. In Natal the position is dreadful. In that province there arc 150,000 'lndians,' the result of indentured labour to the sugar estates. A few years ago there were 200 white men engaged' in the tailoring trade in Durban; to-day there are 40, all badly paid, because of the competition of the Indian tailor. Truly, the Government is faced with a daea'dful problem." Discussing the visit of the Empire Parliamentarians to South Africa, the writer of the letter states that they see only on one side of the picture in South Africa. "Johannesburg, for instance," he says, "hides a vast amount of misery. The Parliamentary visitors and other ditinguished visitors are generally only shown the beauty spots, and under the stimuli of Mayoral banquets and champagne fizzes all looks roseaite. But let them go down into the slums of Vrededorp, where the white outcasts of the race live cheek by jowl with natives, Chinese, Indians, Malays and 'off-colonials' of all shades, and the Mayoral dinner would not lie inoperative for long."