THE COLOUR LIE.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 293, 20 June 1929, Page 3

THE COLOUR LIE.

“ The colour line is not a rational line; the logic neither of words nor facts will uphold it. If its theory is adopted it infallibly aggravates the virulence of the colour problem. The more it is ignored the more is that poison attenuated. It is quite possible to justify a political generalisation—not as a principle, but as a working formula—that where the majority of the population are uncivilsed or uneducated negroes it is expedient to restrict the political franchise by minimum qualifications applicable to the whole community. It is not possible, either as a working political formula or as an anthropological theorem, to establish a generalisation that there is any political or any human function for which coloured persons are by their African blood proved disqualified. In various categories of human activity it may be maintained that, as a rule, and very naturally, for the activities of a State of European civilisation, black and coloured folk are not up to the,

average efficiency of white, and are difficult and disheartening to deal with. On the other hand, in other categories, they often are manifestly more generously endowed than the average of the white men who intermix with them, net only with sympathetic and valuable and human qua ities, but with talent and executive ability for their expression.”—Lord Ollivier.