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Otago Witness, Issue 2403, 22 March 1900, Page 35

NATIVE OPINION IN SOUTH AFRICA.

WHY NATIVES ARE LOYAL.

The following letter, written by a native Zulu to the Natal Mercury, is of special interest at the present season: — " Sir, — I keenly appreciate your just and generous tribute to the loyalty of natives during the fierce crisis of English rule in South Africa. It is the first real test of the loyalty of the natives of the Cape Colony, Natal, and Rhodesia ; and as a native myself, it is to me a source of satisfaction to see that

this loyalty of our people is appreciated by our European colonists. It is, as you say, a tribute, and a magnificent one, to England's just policy towards the natives. I assert it is even a finer tribute to the native's appreoiation, not only of good benefits conferred, but of the spirit which actuates England in her dealings with him. I may disagree with you as to the lessons taught by Maxim guns, hollow squares, and the thin red line. I think no one can have read colonial history, chronicling as it does the rise again and again of the native against Imperial forces, without feeling that he is influenced far less by England's prowess in war than by her justice

in. peace. The natives understand as clearly as anyone the weakness and the strength of the present time. If he were disloyal, and held in only by fear, this would be his supreme opportunity to rise and hurl himself upon the defenceless Cape, upon Natal, and upon Rhodesia. But there is not the slightest symptom of disloyalty, not the lifting of a finger against her Majesty's Government. There is an almost universal hope that Imperial arms will be victorious, and that a Government which, by its inhumanity and relentless injustice, and apparent inability to

see the native has any right a white man should respect, has forfeited its plaoe among the civilised Powers of the earth; and should therefore be deprived of powers so scandalously abused — formerly by slavery and in later years by disallowing the native to Tauy land, and utterly neglecting his intellectual and spiritual needs. There are wrongs to be redressed, but the native believes that England will be more willing to redress them than any other Power. There is still much to be done in the way of educating and civilising the mass of heathen population. The native has observed that wherever England has gone there the missionary and teacher

follow, and that there exists sympathy between the authority of her Majesty and the forces that labour for civilisation and Christianity. These are the things that are more than victories, more than guns, more than fear of England's might, that keep the natives quiet outside and loyal inside. These things are worth more than all the g^uns in British arsenals, and all the soldiers in British barracks. This is not a passive loyalty. Speaking for the Zulus, I believe that, if any emergency arise, in whioh England would be willing to put their loyalty to the test, they

would respond with readiness and enthusiasm equal to that with whioh they fought under Cetywayo, only fighting then under the British flag. Thanking you for* your tribute to my people, and to all the natives who are at this time turning deaf ears to Boer machinations, and with most earnest hope for the triumph of British arms, — I am, etc,

"John Li Dtjbb. "Inanda, M.S. Duffs road P.O.'- 1 ,