FOR WHOM?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8057, 28 February 1906, Page 2

FOR WHOM?

South African matters are of special interest at present to nil colonials because of the probability that at some future time, not very far distant, its colonists will have selfgovernment. We hear nothing very reliable through tho cables about the state of affairs there. It is a pretty safe rule, in fact, to believe the very opposite of cabled statements. The Press of Africa, which, being interpreted, means tho Press of Johannesburg, is entirely run by the capitalists, who give color to the wildly improbable lies that find a place in all the papers of this colony, simply because there is no other source from which to get the information. Tho statement made recently that there was a distinct feeling in tho South African colonies in the direction of " cutting the painter," is the reverse of the feelings that actually exist.

# # * 4> The alleged dissatisfaction of the Boers does not exist. There is, of course, a party of Dutch in the colonies who have nothing to lose, and who are always ripe for any enterprise that promises ride shooting and loot, but those " bywoners " are so few as to cause the least anxiety to the powers that be. The true Boer, with the Briton, hates tho foreign exploiter, and that is why he is going toco-operate with John Bull and not with Eckstein. Tlie frequent intermarriages between Dutch and English people in those colonies is the real way out of all the South African race hatred, and it is a way that is every day bringing the people to a real understanding of each other.

* * # * Tiikx the white people from all countries in Africa have the Kaffir difficulty ever present. Britain has bungled with the Kaffir. It paid him three or four times the wages it paid to its soldiers during the war, with the result that the nigger is justified in believing that he was a three or four times better man. He has a habit of thinking this until the white man hits him hard". The Dutchman used to hit him hard, with the result that he had very infrequent trouble. One of the reasons John Bull had for hitting Jan Boer was that Jan hit the nigger. To repay the kindness of John, the nigger now won't pay his hut tax. Wo don't blame the nigger in the least. He fights about anything he doesn't understand. The reason the biggest Kallir war that ever happened is going to take place in the future is that Eckstein persuaded John Bull that the otitkndoi- Britisher was being illtreated, and that the Kallir was being ill-troated. The Kaffir did not know he was being ill-treated until John Bail told him so. A Kaffir that is paid £4 a month, while his Biitish soldier " baas " is p tid 7s a week, begins to feel he is insulted if be is treated like a mero white man. * * * *

Most of the native races of Africa, if wo exclude tlie Hottentots and Bushmen, are highly intelligent, immensely vigorous, and without the least physical fear. Their deference to the white man is the result only of fear for the white man's superior knowledge and his superior weapons. The gospel of Ethiopianism, which is being taught by the brainy ones of the great black races, spreads with alarming rapidity. Wherever the white man, the black and the yellow men, form component parts of a community, there has always been trouble, and there will be in the future. The latent hostility of the African races may not show itself for years, and might never show itself if the millions of blacks could be kept in ignorance. Seeing, however, ' that' the finer of the Ethiopian races do not deteriorate by contact with the white man this is very obvious by an examination of the affairs of the Southern States of South America—the white man's dominance in Africa is not likely to le of permanent endurance. The necessity of a combined effort to at least preserve this dominance for the time being means, of course, the joining of Dutch and British Afrikanders in a common cause. Besides the millions of magnificent natives in South Africa, there are also many thousands of Hindoo coolies, who are just as likely to cause bother as the natives. The latest cables-which, however, need not be believed implicitly - tell of attacks by the Chinese coolies, imported by' King Eckstein, on Boer farmers.' If half the stories of attacks by Eckstein's slaves are true, the Boer capitalistic party are responsible for more villainy than it is worth. * # # *

The position in Africa is that, being intended for a pastoral country, the whole of its troubles are fermented by people who don't care a threepenny piece for anything pastoral, but who are willing to subjugate everybody i

and everything to a greed of gold and diamonds. It is a significant fact that if the available supply of Kimherley diamonds were put on the markets of the world, the diamond would be about as valuable as opals or other inferior earth products. This does not prevent the diamond kin.»s of Africa from being able to keep thousands of convict Kaffirs under the whips and revolvers of white slave-drivers, increasing the supply that is not of the least importance except to the few persons who become enormously wealthy by the product fimii the blue clay of Kimborly. The Kall'ir convict, who has been made a convict, mostly because he is wanted to dig for diamonds in Kimborly,

is not very kindly disposed towards the white "baas;" the free Knifir hates the white " baas" because he makes a slave of his brothor; the free Kallir hates the Hindoo, who is a very black Jew in the matter of barter, and the whole of them hates the Chinaman, w lio also hates them. There is, therefore, plenty of material and to spare fir a very pretty row in the near future, Despite the alleged ill-treatment of the native races by the Dutchman, about which we were so angry in the past, the Dutchman had very little to do with gold or diamonds -except, as was the case with De Beers, to discover the deposits. * * * *

I'he fact that a comparatively few British people can keep the millions of British India in subjection may argue well for a pacific native South Africa, but the fact that the I millions of black folk in Africa are only just beginning to wake up, as the Japs have done, is an extremely grave circumstance, It is wellknown that the native races wore not asleep during the war in South Africa, and that the Basutos and other great lighting races have large (juautitics of both British and continental a.ims, The enormous developments that were expected to take place under the British regime have not been realised, merely because greed litis concentrated population

[ around the gold and diamond centres. The only hope of peace in A frica is the ollbriiig of large inducements to a white race, to p ople the veldt with settlers who shall not regard minerals as the be-all and end-all of existence, The Ljthicpian is a decent, tractable person as long as he is kept pastoral, but v.lien he is not only , exploited by the mean white, but lirst pampered and then spat on in favor of the yellow man, the same kind of feeling that came over him at - Rorke's Drift comes over him and he | wants to die fighting. When about , llfty millions of liim steps out and \ requests to be allowed to die lighting, t •John nil will be sorry he offered U. King Eckstein a crown, '«