Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, JULY 11, 1927. THE PROBLEM OF AFRICA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16389, 11 July 1927, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, JULY 11, 1927. THE PROBLEM OF AFRICA

Problems of the Pacific naturally absorb attention in this part of the world, anil the Pan-Pacific Conference presently to be held at Honolulu will concern itself with some of the great developments that are expected to take place in the early future in the .countries of the Pacific, littoral. But it must not be overlooked that there is another part of the world in which equally great developments are almost certain to occur before humanity grows much older. Darkest Africa is no longer dark. Civilisation is rapidly penetrating its interior, and the fact is being realised that in this hitherto 'scarcely-known continent .there arc vast possibilities for the future of the human race. A most instructive article in the latest Bound Table gives us all something to think about in this connection. The main characteristic of Africa south of the Equator is that nearly the whole country except the Congo basin and a narrow belt on the East Coast is a plateau averaging 4000 ft. above sea level, with a temperate climate. A region two-thirds the size of Europe, sparsely populated by aboriginal people, mny be called the highlands of Africa. Though Europe has a population of 450 millions, the highlands of Africa have not more than 25 millions, unevenly distributed. The white man is colonising these highlands from north to south at a steadily increasing speed. The country is found to be rich in minerals and wonderfully fertile. The climate is extremely plensnnt, except, in .the steamy valleys. Labor is cheap and plentiful. Tropical diseases begin to yield before civilisation. There are two schools of, thought. One believes Africa south of the Sahara and north of the extreme south, belongs as a right to the negro peoples, and that the white man is an intruder. The other is convinced that if left alone the native is incapable of progress, and that in the long run he will Venofit by contact with and work for the white man, while if left to himself V will remain in chaos and stagnation. So far as the Highlands ure 'concerned, the white settler is already on the spot. The country is thinly populated by natives. The natural resources arc ehornioos and already are in process of development. Whatever the future may enfold, the white man is going to mine, cultivate the soil, .'carry on trade and commerce, not as a temporary visitor" hut as a permanent factor, in* the population, The native is not 'to'be driven from the land, but will be given suitable reserves. He is gradually beginning to understand the magic of the white man's ways, to acquire education and skill, and,to demand n moTe equal status ntid something like a voice in the direction of the land. As he recovers from the shock of the impact of Western civilisation he is bound to become a steadily more dynamic element. The great problcm'now is to find the basis ui)on which black and white, with a number of Asiatics and colored people as well,, can live together in si. country in course of. rapid economic, and social development; If the wrong road iV followed there will develop racial strife compared with which the Anglo-Boer contention of ''the past would be child's play. "The root of the problem is not difficult to understand,'-' says the Round Table writer. "In a country -which is suitable for white colonisation, in which the native population is sparse and extromely primitive?, 'it, , is inevitable that the White man' should make the laws, ctins'truct tlie economic organisation and conduct the Government, it is inevitable that so long as these

['conditions exist .the native should hfi the servant and unskilled laborer and ■be separated from the white race by (impassable harriers. At first the 'autocracy of (lie white does not work badly, but this pleasant state of 'affairs does not last. After awhile land becomes short. Because ■ho. is •stranger the white man secures the lion's share. In the Union of South, Africa, for instance, over 2.'t2 million acres are now held by whites and under 20 million by the natives.* Yet; the white farmer begins to find he can no longer obtain farms for all his children and relatives to live on and the bywo'nor, or poor white, begins to appear. There are more than 100,000 poor whites in the Union to-day. The native also begins to find the native reserves too small for his needs and gravitates to the towns or becomes, a permanent squatter or laborer on white men's farms. The initiation of large scale industry intensifies the process ami develops a system of paying very high wages to skilled whites and very low wages to unskilled native labor. Both poor white and black become marooned in low quarters of the towns, witli no laud to go to and with little chance of obtaining a living at unskilled work because of the competition of natives from the kraal." That is the position which has been reached in tin l Union to-day. The Union has reached the point where the old sharp distinction between black and white on which its economy has been founded hitherto is breaking down. Education, economic forces, contact with civilisation are creating an ever-increasing number of natives who arc no longer simpleminded muscular machines but people fit, to take their place in a modern I organic community. Economic forces are' equally developing a class of whites only fit for unskilled work. The central problem is to initiate the adjustment which is necessary, and to make provision so far as the highlands of Africa are concerned that the mistakes of the past in South, Africa shall not be perpetuated. The policy of Great Britain must be to consider the rights and wellbeing of both races, and not those of either black or white alone. There is room for both races in the country and justice must be done to both.