The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 1916. SUGGESTED NEGRO ARMY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 48, 31 May 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 1916. SUGGESTED NEGRO ARMY.

The suggestion that a negro army be taken to France to help against the Huns is strongly advocated by many in all walks of life in the countries of the Allies, for it is now beyond dispute that we are dealing with outlaws. Mr. Saxon Mills, at one time editor of the Cape Times, has been expressing his views on this question, and he urges the employment of negro troops. In doing so he points out that at this moment there are hundreds of Germany’s foul agents in the deepest recesses of the Empire, exciting to disaffection and rebellion by all poisonous and insidious methods, and complains that we are not concent racing upon the enemy our fullest available manpower, money-power, and trade-power. The population of the British Empire is, roughly and moderately reckoned, 420 million souls. Of these above 000 millions are in India, with five or six millions more in our other Asiatic dependencies. Egypt and the Soudan account for more than 14 millions. Sixty million white people inhabit the I nited Kingdom and the great Dominions, and the remaining forty or fifty millions are made up of our black lellow- ! subjects in Africa and Most Indies, j The subjects of Kaiser W ilhclm at home and overseas numbered at tinoutside before the war some eighty millions. The British Empire holds, I therefore, more than five times as many people as the German. Now, 1 how far do our armies represent this vast man-power in size and quality.'' Mr Mills goes on to say that while tinwhite population of our Empire is making tie* fullest sacrifice. Britain is not availing herself of all the sources el supply of men that she might. In dians, Egyptians and others have been called, but there yet remain some forty or fiftv million African and West Indian negroes, an enormous reserve of i lighting material of a high quality, ol which no use is being made. It is linin’ cd oat among the notable exceptions, that Jamaica has been exceptionally generous. She bas recently ofleic,l to increase her contingent and to pay all attendant cost to the extent of 41(10,000 per annum for forty yeais. -I'li,. old West India Regiments whien date from the eighteenth eenfnrv. luiv ■ played an honorable part m onr mid

tary history, and West Indian uuthos have already done good service ju < piesent war, in the ( anieioou-i mi-* elsewhere. A large eat iuuuia con• tingent. under the l name ol liie Hntish West Indies Regiment, has also been added to our new armies. A com- | peteni authority estimates that l!n- ---! tain might raise a force oi .50,000 men in tin' West Indies alone. .Mr .Mills goes on In maintain that excellent'as this material is, it is scarcely equal hi lighting quality to idle ahorg mil tribes of Africa, which still live under the old organisations of elan and ehieltaiii. These power!ul influences have, ol

course, disappeared in the West Indies, but among Hasutos, Zulus, Hausas, and tbe lest the tribal system and Uie old fierce warrior tradition still survive. Britain has bad some opportunities in the past of estima.ing the military prowess of Zulus and Matabele. Ihe estimated available force that might he thus easily raised is a quaiter ol a million men. Jn answer to objections to using negro troops, it is shown that Germany will stop at nothing in the effort to win and subjugate.the world, and in the true and lasting interests of humanity, therefore, the Allies cannot afford to dispense with any weapon or any element of power which may contribute to our success. At tins crisis we must concentrate every available atom of human and material strength upon the one object oi a final and decisive victory. Germany,, with characteristic cunning and hypocrisy was actually the first of tbe combatants in the present war to use colored troops against us to invade white set tlements, and yet had the impudence to protest against France and Britain’s use of colonial colored tioops, though the latter are highly disciplined soldiers. If they can be got to the scene of opeiations let the Allies use every possible loyal race under their Hags in this fight, for our very existence.