FROM SOUTH AFRICA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLI, Issue 306, 29 November 1906, Page 1

FROM SOUTH AFRICA.

THE BLACK AND THE CHINAMAN. The Rev. Mr Shimmin, who is visiting Now Zealand on furlough (says a Wellington paper) has been 22 years in South Africa as a missionary and n minister to Europeans. He i.-. minister of the British Weeleyan Conference. He h.is lived ais far Hortli as tho Victoiia Falls of the Zambesi. . t Tho mighty hand of Cei-il Rhodes is still on that region, for he had arranged for the prosecution of the Cape to Cairo railway. The great bnuge over the Zambesi is (inched, and these regions can now be reached in a few day.-, which formerly took months with oxen teams. Mr Shimmin was in Majhonaland at the time of the last Matebele outbreak, and many of his mission paity were exterminated. Speaking of the racial problem, he says that it is not the Chinese question, but the black question which causes anxiety to thoughtful Africans. The blacks are in the proportion Of len to one white, and are rapialy increasing. It is their divisions that make the position of the whites In South Africa the black is the only workdi 1 . There is a stigma on all manual labour. A Boer will call a black to bring him a firestick to light his pipe. A South African girl on going to England, and seeing farm labourer.; from the train window, exclaims, "Oh, look at the men doing Kaffir work ! ' Years ago some Australian miners, being hard up, offered to take some pick and shovel work -it an advance on Kaffir wages. li.-f nc three days were over the cont-m-rt associated with such wnrk made thfii ! .' vc ii, up. "We are white men,'' M t- v said, "nit niKgerJ." Tho nt'iio-p I .c of the country on this question infects everyone who comes into it. This is not fully understood by people cjutsi ie of South Africa, who discuss tV) Jiiii- vi' question there.