NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13306, 12 October 1906, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE BLACK PERIL IN SOUTH AFRICA. In the course of an article on South African Problems, Sir W. Butler, dealing with the native question, says : —" Once for all you may take it from me that the native" in Natal and elsewhere, has many and grievous causes and reasons for discontent, and that these causes are daily becoming more acute. You may also take it as certain that there is a considerable portion among the white population to whom a war with the natives would have many attractions. It seems as though South Africa must always have some particular form of cruicifixion going on within it« limits. 'The English protect us only to eat us,' was a saying common among the Kaffirs 40 years ago. A man and a magnate, but a man of rare perspicacity and a magnate of lie widest experience, said to me in Pretoria the word* which I give below: —'There is trouble ahead in South Africa with the natives, to which the Boer war was child's play. I have known the natives for nearly 40 years. At the present moment I employ some 3000 of them directly, and perhaps 30,000 indirectly. I have always got on well with the natives. Men whom I employed 3C years ago still send their children and grandchildren to work for me. The war has been a bad lesson to the natives. It put thoughts into their heads such as they never knew before. It was all thieving and cheating. Ten years at the outside will bring this crash.' 1 wrote down the words immediately after the conversation took place, and I give them now as they were then written. ■ 'What should be ' done?' I asked. 'You should send out "a. QammiestePx' he z«plied A ■'- of some four ox

five good men—not a Commission in a hurry, but* one that would go through the land" colony by colony—seeing for themselves the natives. Then, when they have done this, let them meet a couple of representatives from each colony, Mid let them all decide upon the native pdicy which should be adopted for South Africa— a simple, just, and firm policy. Remember the blacks are moving rapidly. They are no longer children, and fast as they have been moving during the last 10 years, they will go still faster in the coming decade.' No man of English or foreign race now living in South Africa has had longer or more varied experience of the sub-continent than he whose opinion is here given.' AMERICA'S WEALTH. An extremely interesting analysis ©i America's wealth has recently been made on behalf of the Commercial Bureau of Philadelphia by Mr. J. J. Macfarlane, and it is curious to. note that notwithstanding her enormous factories and her vast export trade in manufactured goods America principally relies upon agriculture for her wealth and prosperity. During the last 50 years of the 19th century the number of farms in the States increased by 300 per cent., in 1850 the total amounting to only 1.449,000, compared with 5,737,000 in 1900. The value of the farms in 1900 was £4,000,000,000, which increased last year to £5,314,400,000. The value of the farms during the last five years has advanced at the rate of about £700,000 per day, while the increase for one year very nearly equals the entire national debt of the United States. In 1899 the value of the farm products amounted to £943,400,000, as against £1,283,000,000 last year, an increase of over 35 per cent. The chief crop in the States is maize, or, as it is termed in that country, "corn," no fewer than 94,000,000 acres being devoted to its cultivation last year. The area of corn grown, the quantity produced, and the value exceed the combined totals of wheat, oats, barley, potatoes, rye, buckwheat, and rice. No crop, save corn, yields r» large a return to the farmer as dairy produce, the estimated value in 1905 amounting to £133,000,000. Cotton follows in value of produce with £117,000,000, all of which is grown in the Southern States, chiefly Texas, Georgia, and Mississippi. Poultry forms a very important item in the wealth of the country, the value of the poultry and eggs last year being estimated at £100,000.000. Over 20,000,000,000 eggs were produced. The fruit mostly cultivated is apples, which are chiefly grown in New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The tobacco industry is almost entirely confined to Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. In January of the present year there was a total of 191,500,000 animals in the United States, valued at £734,400,000. The following shows the number of each individual class: —Horses, 18,700,000; cows, 19,700,000; sheep, 50,600,000; milles, 3,400,000; other cattle, 47,000,000; pigs, 52,100.000.