THE BLACK PERIL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15919, 3 May 1912, Page 6

THE BLACK PERIL.

The proposal that a commission should study tho problems connected with tho " black peril" in South Africa illustrates the depth of the foeling that is being aroused among the white citizens of the Union. Attacks upon white women by natives aro becoming more frequent with startling rapidity and some sections of the dominant race have thrown aside all restraint in their references to tho subject. They demand that the offender shall die in every instance and there r, n disquieting tendency to introduce :'k' horrors of lynch law. South Africa, in fact, is threatened with a :•:: war of the kind that has long been

. ;.;ed in the southern States of America. That the authorities realise the danger is shown by the recent announcement that charges arising from offences of a certain class committed by bla«k men will bo heard by a judge alone. Experience has taught the Union Government that juries cannot bo trusted to hold the balance fairly between the two races. The remedy for the ill that is afflicting South Africa has yet to be devised. It is not in the least probable that terrorism will servo any good purpose; indeed, the attempts of tho whites to take the law into their own hands have resulted only in inflaming the native mind. Segregation is not feasible in a country that depends on black labour for performing nearly all the operations of daily life. The late

Mr" W. T. Stead, who was quick to realise the gravity of South Africa's trouble, urged that the white man must begin tho work of reform by removing all cause for reproach from his own relations with the coloured race. As long as some Europeans disregarded the invisible barrier that should separate white from black, tho Kaffirs would be led to follow an evil example. But the advice of the famous journalist offered no immediate solution of a. pressing problem and the demand for State action of some drastic kind is growing in South Africa. The assurance of history that a white minority cannot govern a black majority without the occurrence of unhappy incidents does not help materially to allay public indignation.