Part 6 (2/2)

Jalanced at the article and then replied somewhat sadly, ”This makes the Raid look like thirty cents”

I cannot leave the Rand section of the Union of South Africa without a word in passing about Pretoria, the administrative capital, which is only an hour's journey froer lived It was the throne of a copper-riveted autocracy No modern head of a country ever wielded such a despotic rule as this psal visitors was at five o'clock in the e which he continued to consu feature of the country around Pretoria is the Premier diamond reatest single treasure-trove The est of all diale est Kihteen per cent of the yearly output allotted to the Diamond Syndicate

It was discovered by Thoht the site froinally cost this farmer 2,500 The mine has already produced more than five hundred times what Cullinan paid for it and the surface has scarcely been scraped You can see the natives working in its two huge holes which are not more than six hundred feet deep It is still an open mine In the Preest ever discovered and which ehed 3,200 karats and was insured for 2,500,000 when it was sent to England to be presented to King Edward The Koh-i-noor, by the hich was found in India only weighs 186 karats

[Illustration: _Photograph Copyright by South African Railways_

THE PREMIER DIAMOND MINE]

V

No attempt at an analysis of South Africa would be complete without some reference to the native problem, the one discordant note in the economic and productive scheme The race question, as the smuts dilemma showed, lies at the root of all South African trouble But the racial conflict between Briton and Boer is almost entirely political and in no way threatens the coree on the whole larger proposition and the necessity of settling once and for all a trouble that carries with it the danger of sporadic outbreak or worse Noe co labor trouble which has neither color, caste, nor creed, or geographical line

First letthe South African color problem home to America In the United States the whites outnuhly ten to one

Our coloured population represents the evolution of the one-tienerations into a peaceful, law-abiding, and useful social unit The Southern ”outrage” is the rare exception We have produced a Frederick Douglass and a Booker Washi+ngton Our Negro is a Christian, fills high posts, and invades the professions

In South Africa the reverse is true To begin with, the natives outnumber the whites four and one-half to one--in Rhodesia they are twenty to one--and they are increasing at a reater rate than the Europeans Moreover, the native population draws on half a dozen races, including the Zulus, Kaffirs, Hottentots and Basutos These Negroes represent an ale of developery and superstition The Cape Colony is the only one that pero to school or become a skilled artisan Elsewhere the white retains his monopoly on the crafts and at the saro can perforration into the Union The big task, therefore, is to secure adequate work for the Negro without perh it

It follows that theof education he begins to think about his position and unrest is fomented It makes him unstable as an employee, as the constant desertions froold and diamond mines keep their thousands of recruited native workers is to confine them in compounds The ordinary labourer has no such restrictions and he is here today and gone to to discover that in a country teeood servants, a condition hich the American housewife can heartily sympathize Before I went to Africa nearly every wo her back a diamond and a cook They were much more concerned about the cook than the dia this human jewel, I would have had to charter a shi+p to convey thee in the Congo, a sad commentary on domestic service conditions

The one class of stable servants in the Colony are the ”Cape Boys,” as they are called They are the coloured offspring of a European and a Hottentot or a Malay and are of all shades, fro called ”niggers” The first ti the war South Africa sent over thousands of them to recruit the labour battalions and they did excellent work as teamsters and in other capacities The Cape Boy, however, is the exception to the native rule throughout the Union, which means that most native labour is unstable and discontented

Not only is the South African native aof a physical danger In towns like Pretoria and Johannesburg there is a considerable feeling of insecurity Wo left alone with their servants and are filled with apprehension while their little ones are out under black custodianshi+p

The one native servant, aside from some of the Cape Boys, who has deest nu person and he carried with hireatness of his race Perhaps one reason why he is safe and sane reposes in his recollection of the repeated bitter and bloody defeats at the hands of the white men Yet the Zulu was in armed insurrection in Natal in the nineties

South Africa enjoys no guarantee of i even now in the twentieth century when the world uses the aeroplane and the wireless During the past thirty years there have been outbreaks throughout the African continent As recently as 1915 a fanatical form of Ethiopianism broke out in Nyassaland which lies north-east of Rhodesia, under the sponsorshi+p of John Chilero preacher who had been educated in the United States The natives rose, killed a number of white men and carried off the women Of course, it was summarily put down and the leaders executed But the incident was significant

Prester John, whose story is familiar to readers of John Buchan's fine romance of the same name, still has disciples Like Chilembwe he was a preacher who had acquired so-called European civilization He dreamed of an Africa for the blacks and took his inspiration fros of Abyssinia He tooon In 1919 a Pan-African Congress was held in Paris to discuss soht be called Pan-Ethiopianisro convention in New York City advocated that all Africa should be converted into a black republic

One exaly to my personal attention At Capetown I roes which is conducted under religious auspices

The occasion was a dinner given by J X Merriman, the Grand Old Man of the Cape Colony This particular educator spoke with glowing enthusiasm about this institution and dwelt particularly upon the evolution that was being acco invitation to visit it He happened to be on the train that I took to Kie of his journey horeat work the school was doing

When I reached Kimberley the first item of news that I read in the local paper was an account of an uprising in the school Hundreds of native students rebelled at the quality of food they were getting and went on the rae They destroyed the power-plant and wrecked several of the buildings The constabulary had to be called out to restore order

In roes never really lose the primitive in them despite the claims of uplifters and senti I heard of a concrete case when I was in the Belgian Congo A Belgian judge at a post up the Kasai River acquired an intelligent Baluba boy All personal servants in Africa are called ”boys” This particular native learned French, acquired European clothes and becaiuer than he expected and sent the negro back to the Congo No sooner did the boy get back to his native heath than he sold his European clothes, put on a loin cloth, and squatted on the ground when he ate, precisely like his savage brethren It is a typical case, and reat deal of so-called black-acquired civilization in Africa falls aith the garb of civilization

The only African blacks who have really assi influence so far as oes are those of the West Coast Some of the inhabitants of Sierra Leone will illustrate what I e and have become doctors, lawyers and coro oes to their fondness for using big words I saw hundreds of theian Congo where they are known as ”Coast-men,” because they co experience with one when I was on e by him to the captain of the little steae I asked that the vessel be made ready for immediate departure The Coast-lish nalish fluently--came back and said:

”I have conveyed your expressed desire to leave immediately to the captain of your boat He only returns a verbal acquiescence but I assure you that he will leave nothing undone to facilitate your speedy departure”