SOUTH AFRICA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1194, 10 January 1914, Page 4

SOUTH AFRICA.

THROUGH A NEW ZEALANDER’S EYES. Mr W. Farquhar Young, writing from London to a friend in Dunedin, says: "You will see that I am back safely from South Africa. Had a successful lime in every way ; but it is an awful place—in fact, the further one travels the more one’s respect and love for dear old Maoriland increases. I did all the East Coast, from Cape to Durban—East Loudon, Queenstown, Grahamstown, and most of Natal, through the central part of Blomefonteiu, and surrounding towns to Johannesburg, Pretoria, down to Kimberley and all round. Oh ! the dreary, monotonous wretchedness of the country ; the coarseness, mistrust aud greed of the strangely mixed population, blac c and while alike; their dislike of everything British, their open boating that although the country was won from them they still rule it. I am alluding, of course, to the Dutch. The worst of the boast is that its sting lies in its absolute truth. Things are different in the Natal district, but the loyal portion of the people —loyal before and alter the war — feel they have been banded by the British Government over to their enemies’ rule, much as the loyal Maliealoau people were handed over to their German sympathisers iu Samoa. It is a sad thought that the conquest of South Africa cost Great Britain that the laud was irrigated with the best blood of her people and colonists, and yet one has to look vainly around (or Britishers or a glimpse of that justice that usually follows their rule. Aud yet Britishers can be found. I am wrong. For 1200 miles of railway between Capetown, Pretoria and surrounding lines there are graves on each side of your train—little Celtic crosses —thousands of them, some white, some black, the while signifying ‘killed iu action,’ the black ‘died from disease.’ The black seemed to predominate; monuments to the fatherly care aud forethought (?) of a paternal Government and prudent intelligence and commissariat department. What a lesson the Japs taught us iu these matters ! There are some things I’ve seen in South Atrica and in England that saps a good deal of one’s enthusiasm iu singing ‘Britons never will be slaves.”