The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1930. THE AFRICAN NATIVE.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 July 1930, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1930. THE AFRICAN NATIVE.

For some years South Africa lias been the happy hunting ground of the Moscow Third International and, indeed, of British Communists as well. The coloured races in the Union have lately become more insistent upon their right to enjoy a greater lheasure of freedom to speak for themselves, to have their own voice in the Government, and the emissaries of Sovietism have been busy flattering and pandering to their awakening national consciousness. Bolshevist propaganda has been circulated over a number cf years, and, in addition to so-called labour organisations which are little better than schools for the dissemination of seditious teaching, numbers of political-religious sects have swung up, the primary object of which is to preach not religion, but socialism. The enlargement of the natives’ horizon has, unfortunately, been achieved to a great extent hv prophets of revolution, while the mind of the negro, at least, has remained that of a. child, “with a child’s psychology and outlook.” The resolution carried by the African National Congress, as reported in the cable news, aiming at the formation of <a blbck South African republic, may be taken as a proof that the mentality of the native is somewhat ingenuous. according to Western standards. Professor Tliaele, one of the native leaders, who lias, ipcidf"”ta-llv, been in trouble previously with the authorises. told an interviewer after tbe meeting bad closed that the Communist Party had r.laced £SOO at the disposal of ,the Congress, and that tb<> income from members averaged £‘Y> 070. Even t)V most sanguine white Communist would hardlv eon-|,plV-)!'Jn flip building .of !> ivMW’Ulip with this capital sum. especially when it has to be wanmel f.lu.it tbe. native pioneers woo'd find diffumH-. fo- a year or ,so, in p n ring their dims. T'm native moiume. wlmo if breaks into f'-p iumvs with such a fantastic manifest"tio’i, might annear to 'ip puev.rated. | lmt pximrwnoe in Africa has r’erpevietvoted that, tile r-rdonr n”oftiu-i i« of paramoieif. importance, and that C'nr"u.tff puiivitieu o r n of much trouble, TllO cr'illlpms P v e manifold. Tbe desire of f''° Brit’sb Gcvc’uiment is t'int the native p'’'"; mac become a part of tbe citizenship fit P.onl'l Africa, but those who are r-locolc in ton eh with the n'wrtmo are nil but baffled by the complexities oi

the situation. The term “native,” for example, is generally misunderstood. Air Julian Huxley emphasised this point in a recent article in The Times: . . the people are as vailed as the country,” he wrote, “Europeans, Arabs, Indians, Africans; and the Africans, though the ignorant persist in classing them all a,s merely ‘blacks,’ natives,’ or even ‘niggers,’ show more variety of physical type and way of life than it is to found in all Europe.” The great mistake in dealing with /’these traces wow'd be, in the opinion of General Smuts to try to deprive them of the charnrteristic standards which they have inherited. Their civilisation can progress only in accordance with their own institutions, customs and ideas, and it must be the aim of their British mentors to educate them to an appreciation of the obligations of the individual in a democratic .community. The object of the Third International appears to be simpler—to create discord and, if necessary, to precipitate a native revolution. Wrongly led, the natives are a dangerous force, and the implications of such a resolution as that passed by the National Congress, which boasts a million members, cannot, be disregarded. Jt would appear that the warning of General Smuts, during his visit to England receiitt-p that the question of British poliev in South Africa should be clarified at the earliest possible moment, has not been made any too soon,