PRICE OF CIVILISATION TO AFRICA.

Otago Witness, Issue 3111, 29 October 1913, Page 75

PRICE OF CIVILISATION TO AFRICA.

IS IT WORTH IT TO THE NATTY EST Two dark pictures of the price which Africa is paying for civilisation have ji»t been drawn—one by Sir Rider Haggard of the Zulus, and another by Rev. Norman Maclean of the natives in British East Africa. —What Sir Rider Haggard Says.— Sir Rider Haggard, writing to The Times, says: ‘•'lt is over 30 years since last I saw the shores of South Africa, though all being well my official duty will ere long take me there again. From what I hear and read, I fear since my time civilisation has been bard at work among thesepeoples. Thus the Zulus who fought us at Isandhlvvana had their vices; bloodthirstiness, superstition, and cruelty in war, for instance. But they a iso had many virtues, such as courage, loyalty, and freedom from meanness or vulgarity. “Again, in the seventies I never heard of an assault upon a white woman by a Kaffir. Now that tale is often told. A while ago a white man shot a Kaffir who had insulted his daughter. Under the dead man’s pillow in his hut was found an indecent photograph, or so it was reported. It is permissible to wonder with whom lies the greater blame, the ignorant savage or tin makers and vendors of this abominable thing. Gin and vile picture* do not emanate from native maim factories. I do not know that 1 can better emphasise my point than by quoting a few lines from an introductory letter to a recently-published Zulu tale of mine, addressed to Mi Janies Stuart: —Everything Changed.— “‘Now everything is changed, or so I hear, and doubtless in the balance thi* is best. Still, we may wonder what are the thoughts that pass through the mind of some ancient warrior of Chaka’s or Dingaan’s time, as he suns himself crouched on the ground, for example, where onctNstood the 'Royal kraal, Duguaa, and watches mqn and women of the Zoin blood passing homeward from the cities or the mines, Bemused, some -of them, Avith the white man’s smuggled liquor, grotesque in the white man’s cast-off garments, hiding, perhaps, in their blankets examples of the white man’s doubtful photographs —and then shuts his sunken eyes and remembers tho plumed and kilted regiments making that same ground shake as, with a thunder of salute, line upon line, company upon company, they rushed out to battle.’ “One more word. For good or ill, civilisation is sowing its seeds among these black races, and it must therefore bo prepared to reap their harvest in due season. To my mind the great question of the future in Southern Africa,’ says Si* Rider, “is not, as so many suppose, that of the political dominance of Englishman or Boer, but of the inevitable though, let us hope, far-off struggle for practical supremacy between the white blood and the black.” •Rev. Norman Maclean’s picture appears in the Scotsman. The lyre of his motor car burst while riding in British EAsh Africa. —By-product of Forced Labour.— “While we sat Availing, a native girt came running to the missionary and said, ‘There is a dead man in the bush there.’ A few steps from the road, veiled by a stunted bush, he lay there on his side, his palm under his head, the red blanket in a heap by his side, a cloud of flics and insects buzzing round him beginning their banquet. When the night came the hyenas would finish tho work. For no Kikuyu Avill ever touch or bury the dead. And yet he lie here, manifestly returning from some work. How came it? Well, I hate to use the word— l would not, if I could avoid it; but I sadly fear that this man lying dead here, Avhose bones wLU to-night be picked clean by the hyenas, is, in his death* a by-product of Forced Labour. “What! Forced Labour! under the British flag, that symbol of freedom!, in the territory of an Empire thatj freed the world’s slaves—it is impossible. If this were Portuguese hinterland I could believe it; but this is tho latest, and, in its own mind, destined to be among the greatest provinces of the British Empire, and to speak of Forced Labour there is but a baseless slander. —Workmen Wanted.— “If the tide of civilisation is to scatter its blessings over this land, then channels must be made along Avhich the tide will fIoAV. And chanels cannot be made without Avorknien. Roads have to be made, Government houses to be built, swamps to be bridged, the bush to be cleared, the ground to be brokeh up, harvests to bo reaped—and all that cries out for workmen. Wherever the British go, there the word ‘work’ acquires a new significance. And these races know not what the Avord means. * “They will not work. If the white man could himself bend his back to the toil, he would do it. But the vertical sun ray* prevent that. What, then, is to be done? Under the British flag there cannot be

Forced Labour ; that would be only slavery under a new guise. The position is the most difficult. It is here that the genius of the British for development and government manifests itself. They have reconstituted the power of the chiefs; where there were no chiefs they were created. And the Government send word to the chief that they want on a certain day so many men for work. And on that day they are forthcoming. But how? The chief compels the men to go. If a man refuses his sheep are taken a* a fine. And thus the work goes on. —The Result Is—“If this labour were regular, were a recognised part of the Protectorate organisation, there would be ample provision made for the workers; care would be taken that they return safely home. But as it is, they are treated as voluntary workers; they get their fair wages justly, and there the responsibility ends. And the result is that they sleep on the way by the borders of swamps; that, after they return home, ‘in many hundreds of instances all that remains of the native is a corpse in the bush awaiting the hyena’s visit.’ It is on this Fort Hill road that the workmen oecome infected with fever returning home. “ ‘Porters returning home from Government safaries, from settlers’ farms, from missionaries’ safaries, from native trading expeditions, have all been found to be infected, and on practically every gang a certain percentage dies as the result of this infection. I have known the percentage of deaths to be as high as 80 and 90 per cent, on some gangs.’ “Thus the evidence of Dr Philp before ■ the Labour Commission, as reported in the local press. Civilisation marches to its triumph stepping on the heaped-up bodies of the slain. The dead man in the bush, then, has only stumbled beneath the march of its feet. And after all he was of little value. He knew nothing, could do nothing except wield a hoe unwillingly, and to him the earth was flat and meaningless. Ah! but what was he to himself, as he dimly knew himself, full of the intensest self-realisation, capable of love and laughter, terror and tears, thrilling, throbbing with inarticulate emotion and life’s desires. To us so little; to himself so great; and what to the Unseen ? But to him it is over now. He unfortunately stumbled among the feet of the marching host. —Too Great a Price.— “When one considers the benefits which we have, conferred on the natives of British East Africa, one does not feel quite so sure that they are worth so great a price—-the coin of Forced Labour. That in quy shape or forrn Forced Labour should be a part of British rule is a matter that must cause concern. If it be necessary, it ought to be regularised and safeguarded. “If the price of civilisation be Forced Labour then the price is too great. The Kikuyu would be better without such a civilisation,” concludes Mr Maclean.