THE COLOUR QUESTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19530, 13 July 1925, Page 7

THE COLOUR QUESTION

PROBLEM IN SOUTH AFRICA. WARNING OF RACIAL CLASH. Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, July 10. Mr G. Ward Price, writing in the Daily Mail, says: “The threatening racial clash between black and white in South Africa is becoming an outstanding problem. Politi cians frame legislative breakwaters against the spreading sea of colour; nevertheless, they know that they are only weak expedients, and are no practical remedy for the impending conflict caused by the rise of racial unity among the blacks, wlioso tribal jealousies are disappearing, and whose languages are fusing. There are 8,000,000 natives throughout South Africa, compared with 1,560,000 whites. The blacks arc multiplying far more rapidly than their white masters, who base economic development on cheap labour. “The blacks are developing a conscientious spirit of colour consciousness, under tile lead of American educated natives, who brag that their function is to lead the primitive tribes in the racial struggle. Such conditions may end in rebellion, which would mean first the massacre of the scattered whites; then the massacre of half-armed natives. “When the Prince of Wales reviewed 4000 natives in traditional fighting kit and feathers, and armed with assegais and knohkerrics, and singing a war chant punctuated with the stabbing of an imaginary foe, a South African officer told me that every song was a veiled threat. Meanwhile pretty, bare-armed Euro (lean girls photographed the warriors as if the review was a Wembley side-show. “The police have discovered the existence of a bloodthirsty native secret society named the Omalita, the members of which* swear to ‘ravish virgin and murder man’ before they die.”—Sydney Sun Cable.