WHITE POVERTY IN AMERICA

Hokitika Guardian, 19 February 1930, Page 8

WHITE POVERTY IN AMERICA

Large numbers of white people in die Union of South Africa are living .jelow the poverty line. In the towns poverty among the whites does not obtrude itself, but in the barren backveld a great mass of the population is eking out a pitiful existence. The problem of white poverty in a country where the black man outnumbers the white by nearly 7 to 1, is one of the most serious which faces the South African Government. Revelations of the life of the poorest class'of whites have been made by Dr. Malherbe, who has served as a member of the Research Committee to the British Association. He has collected hundreds of biographies and has examined, about 5000 children in 50 schools. In one of the schools not one child ,even in the highest classes, could find South Africa on the map. He gave many instances of the almost incredible ignorance which prevails in many of the schools outside the big South African towns. Most,-of the poor whites are Dutch-speaking, and none of them has received any education beyond elementary knowledge in the veld schools. Dr. Malherbe declared that the white man was resorting to measures which would jeopardise the whole of South Africa’s economic future and that of the white man in particular. “Such measures as are proposed,” he said, “will in time rob the dominating race of the virtility bred from the buffeting of stern competition, and will render it soft and weak when the nemesis comes. History has shown that Nature selects the coddled privileged class of any country for destruction.”