THE NEGROES' FUTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1911, 6 July 1888, Page 30

THE NEGROES' FUTURE.

Nothing really improves the negro except one of two causes— crossbreeding and catching hold cf some foreign but superior creed. The crossbreeds of the Soudan and of South Africa seem to have some fine qualities — matchless courage, for example— and under a strict but vivifying white rule might, we fancy, be brought, in a century or two, up to the Asiatic level. They produce geneuils, at all events, and chiefs with some tincture of statesmanship, and have poetry and a folklore of their own. Those negroes, again, who have embraced Islam do show a certain manliness, a capacity for aggregation, and a tendency, at all events, to form kingdoms and organise armies and obey laws, which are the first steps towards a higher civilisation. It is not a high civilisation, for, when all is said, a Mohammedan negro is not an ideal of humanity towarc s which Europeans can look with riny feelings of enthusiasm ; but still it is higher, far higher, than the condition c*- tho African pagan. The negro who embraces Christianity, again, while he remains in contact with the white man, distinctly advances. " Uncle Tom " is an abnormal specimen, it may be, and we are not inclined to place the moral condition of the negroes of the Southern States very high ; but still they have displayed a perfectly wonderful absence of vindictiveness towards the former slave owners, obey the ordinary laws with fair regularity, and keep themselves above starvation by the labour of fclieir own hands. The best of them, moreover, rise far beyond this point, the South containing both doctors and lawyers, who, by the admission of the whites, are thoroughly

competent men ; and- it maybe said of the whole. body that, though not equal to.anyEuropean community of the same extent they are far superior to any four millions of pagan negroes who could be selected in Africa.

As they cannot owe this rise in the scale to slavery, which at the best could only drill the negroes to industry, and at the worst must beget a permanent distaste for labour, tho change must bo owing to Christianity, plus the operation of laws based upon that faith. It follows that the largest group of negroes under civilised observation the descendants, as is believed, of four widely distinguished tribes, have been raised in the scale of humanity by embracing a rude form of the Christian faith. The total conclusion, therefore, as yet justified by evidence is that intermarriage, especially with the Arab, improves Che negro tribes, that they gain in manliness by embracing Islam, and that they gain in the social virtues by embracing 1 Christianity, the latter to a degree measured by the depth and earnestness of their faith. At home, when unconquered and unconverted, they do not advance, and the point still doubtful is whether, when left to themselves, they will not, even when converted, again recede or stop. The Abys3inians, who are Semites, have been Christians for ages. Ihe conclusion is not very satisfactory ; bnfc it is certain that races of imperfect powers exist — e.g., the Australian aborgines — and that Providence doea, for unknown purposes, occasionally waste even fine races — e.g., the Maoris, who will, to all appearancp, die out, having fulfilled no function at all, not even that of preparing the way for the ultimate occupants of their country. — Spectator.