A NEW PROBLEM IN SOUTH AFRICA.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 14 September 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

A NEW PROBLEM IN SOUTH AFRICA.

(G. H. Kingswell in London Daily Express.) Capetown, July 1. One effect of the South African war which has so far not attracted public attention, is the influence which the awful struggle for supremacy is exerting on the native race. On the whole there can be no doubt that the large majority of tho blacks were with us from the first, and thousands have been ready at any time to take their place in the firing line against the Dutch had we but asked them and supplied theni with the necessary arms.

The Basutos especially were always ready to take a hand, and the story of how they were prevented from falling upon De Wet’s commando at Wepener has already been told. Splendidly armed and superbly mounted on their small hardy ponies, the Basutos are a standing menace to the future of South Africa. Among such enlightened Boers as Piet De Wet, General Grobler, Paul Botha, and others, the opinion is general that unless the Imperial Government do something after this war to disarm or at least curtail the strength and arrogance of the Basutos, trouble is certain in the near future. The tribe, or rather, the nation —for they count 3-5,000 armed horsemen—are simply spoiling for a fight.

Owing to the high prices which they received for their surplus stock, especially going to them for food supplies, principally maize, the Basuto people arc richer than ever they have been. The effect of this sudden wealth is seen. Few, very few, Basutos are open for engagement in the labor market. Two years ago they formed a fourth of the labor in the diamond mines; on the Rand there were from 8000 to 10,000 of them employed, and some were to be found working in the coastal towns as wharf Laborers and house servants. To-day there are none to be seen anywhere. They have returned to their kraals, and no amount of inducement can get them out. Amongst the Swazis the same thing applies in a lesser degree, and even the Zulu people, long ago shattered and split up into factions, are beginning to heal their differences and unite once more as a result of their prosperous condition. The civilised tribes, which live among the white people, and which have cast off all tribal allegiance and even native customs, are looming large in the land. Their services have been more sought after during the war than ever before it, and it is curious to reflect on the arguments of those people who before the outbreak of hostilities loudly proclaimed that the poor nigger, ousted from his employment in the mines and on the farms of the two republics, would be crushed between the two opposing white races. At present the British army employs fully 20,000 natives as drivers with the various columns, dock laborers at the several bases, and general rousabonts. They received from £'S to as high as £lO per month, and having tasted these increased wages the result is that native labor in South Africa today is already alarmingly scarce. Labor agents have scoured the country for workers for Kimberley and the Rand, but so far the response has been a feeble one. The Basuto will not leave his kraal while he can keep his wives and flocks; the Zulu sits tight in his semi-independent state, and the Swazis cannot be induced to mining. It is just sixteen months since the seige of Kimberley was raised, and still the De Beers Company cannot secure a fourth of the native labor required. The writer was in Kimberley last week, and found the compound on the diamond mines almost deserted. One of the largest mines, the Wesselton, stopped the night shifts a fortnight ago owing to the scarcity of labor, and although special inducements have been offered to the natives they will not enter the mines. In the collieries of Natal the same scarcity prevails, while in Capetown so many natives have returned to the Transkei and the north in consequence of the plague that the ordinary work at the docks is very seriously hampered. Last week at Port Elizabeth a strike —unprecedented in the annals of the white man in South Africa —took place among the natives because they feared isolation and inoculation as a result of the plague.

The Commissioner of Native Affairs in the Transvaal reports that when the war is over 50,000 natives will be required at once for the mines, and not more than one-fifth are available. The fifth he estimates in hand are the majority of those employed by the military] at present; but there is no guarantee that they will accept the terms offered. Anything in the shape of coercion will, of course, be absolutely prevented, consequently the outlook is far from encouraging.

Even in far-off Rhodesia the Chartered Company are short of natives, and failing to get a suitable supply in Central Africa the proposal to import Chinese has been made. The proposition, however, has raised such a cry not only throughout South Africa, but all over the Empire, that even Mr. Rhodes has ceased referring to it, and ihe matter is now seldom referred to. That the Chartered Company will make a strong effort to induce the Colonial Office to allow them to im-

port Asiatics there is little doubt as even the present available supply of black labor in Rodesia is sure to bo attracted south by the higher wages offered by the goldmines of the Rand. Another disquieting feature of the situation is the fact that thousands of natives will be required as farm laborers before the devastated territory north of the Orange River can be put into cultivation* Where this labor, the most necessary and the most expedient for the recovery of the country, is to come from no one who has any idea. The farmer cannot afford to pay such high wage's as the mine owner, and until the latter has all bo requires the tiller of the soil lias, a poor chance. Of the many problems facing Lord Milner on bis return to South Africa none threatens a. more difficult solution than this native question.

In addition to the increased prosperity as a result of the war, the native has lost much of his former respect and fear of the white man. Ho has seen the British and Dutch tight to the death, and he now knows that the white race arc not the invincible warriors he was led to believe. That there is an independence, an arrogance, and a haughty demeanour observable among what may ho termed as the partially uncivilised races of South Africa no one who travels through the country can for a moment deny. It is one of the bitter fruits of the war, and Dutch and British alike are just becoming acquainted with its neuseons taste.