SOUTH AFRICA.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4744, 29 August 1924, Page 3

SOUTH AFRICA.

PROBLEMS TO BE MET. “NOT A WHITE' MAN’S COUNTRY.'’ “The industries of South Africa have not benefited the white race at all, as, apart from the production of wool and stock, they are all carried on by coloured labour. Good men get no more than 15s a week in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, where the coloured people have equal rights. You can see, therefore, that it is not a white man’s country.’’ Such is the picture which Mr C. Faria, who has just arrived from Durban, paints of South Africa. Interviewed by a “Dominion” reporter a few days ago, he said that he was heartily glad to land in a country like New Zealand, and fervently hoped that he would never set foot in South Africa again.

Questioned as to the political situation, Mr Faria declared that the present Government was the only true South African Government which the country had ever had, and he was convinced that General Hertzog would prove a much better Prime Minister than General Smuts had ever been, inasmuch as the new leader was more for the people and the country. General Smuts had for years been warning the people against Hertzog and his party, the Nationalists, and prophesying that if they got into power they would enforce nationalisation, and biing back the old Dutch bitterness ; that they would pull down the Union Jack, so to speak. Mr Faria did not for a moment believe that this was so. South Africa -n the past, he declared, had been dominated by mine magnates and the Jews. Previous to the last election there had been three parties striving for power —the South African Party, the National Party, and the Labour Party. This had led to vote-splitting, and had been the means of keeping the South African Party in Power. At the last election General Hertzog, leader of the National Party, and Colonel Cresswell, leader of the Labour Party, had formed what General Smuts called the “Pact,” and this led to the complete downfall of the Government. “The Hertzog Government had just formed a Cabinet when I left,” said Mr Faria, “and I am sure it will prove to the benefit of South Africa as a whole that this Government did come.” BLOODSHED ON THE RAND. The Smuts Government had been defeated, Mr Faria stated, because of the revolution on the Rand, which the Government could have stopped by getting up an arbitration board between the workers and the Chamber of Mines. An abortive conference had been held, and the Chamber of Mineshad made no honest attempt to avert the bloodshed which followed. “It is a poor Prime Minister,” added the South African, "who cannot prevent bloodshed.”

EXODUS FROM THE COUNTRY. Prior to the last election, proceeded Mr Faria, skilled artisans were leaving Johannesburg in thousands. There were dozens of empty houses. One could have fired a gun dowln the streets of Germiston and mot hit a soul. If the Government had been working on the people’s behalf, Mr Faria contended,.there would have been no need for these skilled workers to leave South Africa in order to seek homes elsewhere. Dozens of shopkeepers, who relied for their trade upon the working man, went bankrupt.

“The coloured people are infringing on the rights of the skilled artisans in South Africa to an alarming extent,” continued Mr Faria. “I hope and trust that the new Government will safeguard the interests of the white workers. The late Government did not assist farmers in the liberal manner in which your New Zealand Government does. The South African land schemes are no good at all.

LITTLE USE IN EDUCATING BOYS. "A serious problem in South Africa to-day,” proceeded Mr Faria, “is to know what to do with boys who have just finished schooling. It is not the .slightest use educating boys up to the matriculation standard, as there is little demand for them. The natives are becoming educated, and the people trade on the natives. In most of the law offices the clerks are Indians : especially is this the case in Natal and Durban. They receive from 15 to £6 a month. Even the furniture traue is carried on by Indians. Theie is a good demand in Durban and Johannesburg for European bricklayers, masons, and carpenters, because the labour unions in those centres aie strong, and do not allow the coloured races to work under the award rate of wages, which is about 3s an houi. I feel certain that .there are better prospects in New Zealand for my son. There are men with university educations selling ice-creams in Durban to-day.” It was degrading for a white man to work in South Africa, proceeded the visitor, as labouring work was con--sidered the duty of the coloured race. White men who were forced to do manual work only received 5s a day. The coloured people were a serious problem. It was no use trying to educate the natives, as if this was done they would only go back to their kraals, sit in the sun, and live on maize meal. “I can’t understand,” he added, "why the Sbuth African Government allows agitators to enter the country and stir up the coloured races by telling them that they 1 have equal rights with the ' white people. My opinion is that if they don’t (segregate the Indians they will have a most difficult problem to face. If they don’t shift the Indians the white races will have to shift.” This was what helped to bring General Hertzog into power, continued Mr Faria. The new Prime Minister had no sympathy with the Indians. He bluntly told a deputation just before the elections that if he got into power the Indians would have to go. Tn the urban areas of Durban Indians had a monopoly of the hawking and vegetable trades. White men could not compete against them. THE OLD DUTCH STYLE. South Africa, he considered, should

revert to the old Dutch policy of dealing with the natives. The Dutch paid their coloured labourers ,10s a month and gave them a heifer calf every six months. The natives used to buy wives with cows, and the more children tney had the wealthier they became. The natives, he declared, were much happier in the old Dutch days. Though a native to-day got £2 a month and his keep, he only worked for two or three months and then insisted on returning to his home, where he loafed for a similar period. Unless a white man was very highly skilled there was no room for him in South Africa as the nativeis were the labourer.

“My opinion,’’ concluded Mr Faria, “is that unless a man has £3OOO or £4OOO he should on no account go to South Africa. A South African farmer, if he does not strike drought, which will compel him to cut the throats of his lambs to save his ewes, will be lucky if he escapes a plague of Ipcusts, which may compel him + o trek miles to a region where feed and water may be obtained for his stock. It is not all beer and skittles in South Africa, I can assure you. Another plague we have in South Africa is the Jewish shopkeepers, who have most of the small farmers in their power. There are more Jews in South Africa than in any other British Dominion. The practic&pC going to the Jewish shopkecpergJfor financial assistance commeiicecPwith the old Dutch farmers, who were very suspicious of legal formalities. I am glad to be out of South Africa, and well pleased to be in New Zealand, which, if all I have read and heard of this Government is true, must be the best country in the world to-day.”