"THE NEW AFRICA."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19659, 10 June 1927, Page 7

"THE NEW AFRICA."

MISS WHITELAW'S TRAVELS, AN INTERESTING ADDRESS. " The Now Africa " was the subject o a most interesting address by Miss A. Whitelaw, M.A., at the Lyceum Club luncheon yesterday. The president, Mrs. W. H. Parkes, said Miss Whitelaw, who was so well-known as a former headmistress of the Auckland Girls' Grammar School, had, on her retirement from the position of headmistress lof Wycombe Abbey, England, visited Soutli Africa, whore she had studied the condition of education among the natives. Miss Whitelaw said the immensity of the problems concerning native education in Africa was one that could bo gauged only when the great racial differences existing in that country were taken into consideration. She would confine her address to conditions in South Africa, West and East Africa and Northern Rhodesia. Travelling in those countries with Mr. Oldham, a member of the Advisory Committee on Education in England, she was given an insight into the very complicated state of affairs at present existing. This, no doubt, was greatly accentuated by the rapidity of the change which had swung primitive races into cLose touch with 20th century civilisation. Instancing this, Miss Whitelaw said that in Tanganyika she found a little native boy in one of the schools wrestling with a cross-word puzzle. In Nairobi, a native chief presented her to his two native wives in his home, and a short distance away a queuo of natives was awaiting the opening of a modern cinema. Thus it was seen that natives living in their primitive state were in the closest touch with modern invention. Motor transport was literally at; their doors. These conditions had been largely due to the post-war economic difficulties and to the fact that raw materials were greatly needed in the world's markets. In a country of immense proportions with a population one-third of that of China there were 2000 dialects. The racial problems alone were extraordinary. There were living side bv side the English and the Dutch, the Indians, with their labour problems, the " coloureds," which meant the half-caste 3 who were quite distinct from the natives, and the " poor whites," people incompetent to earn their own living. The eight millions population of South Africa included 5£ million native and " coloured," and million white, of which only one in ten was fully capable of skilled work. The colour-bar bill was one that had aroused great diversity of opinion and contention. The climate of South Africa was quits a healthy one, but West Africa and the Gold Coast were not suitable for white men to work in. In Johannesburg the conditions \yere extraordinary ana one found between 5000 and 6000 natives living in one mine compound. East Africa was not greatly populated and was not suitable for white labour. There disease was rife, although medical science had done wonders in recent years, particularly with regard to infant mortality, which even yet was enormously high. The present time in Africa might be termed one of a great awakening on every hand. The cry for raw materials in tha world's markets had opened up the interior of Africa and the natives working under white men had learnt to envy his power, which they concluded had been gained by education, which, in their minds, meant simply the ability to read and write. One would find a native pouring laboriously over a volume of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poems. An engineer on Lake Victoria Nyanza said that in his railway workshop there were 600 boys who could neither read nor write. They were clamouring for education. The night schools were rushed, and there were many which held three sittings. To meet this great awakening on the part of the population the Government was doing lis utmost, and two factors that were largely assisting operations were the League of Nations and the mandates. Particularly applicable to present conditions was the Spirit embodied in the following mandate :—" The wellbeing and progress of those nations of the world who are not able to stand alone against the strenuous development of modern life should be a sacred trust of the civilisations of the world." In concluding Miss Whitelaw paid a high tribute to the work carried on by tne missionaries. The great principle in the- development of South Africa fay in the recognition of the fact that with education it was essential there should be the training of character.