THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, MARCH 26, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8104, 26 March 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, MARCH 26, 1906.

The reoenfc "native menace" in Natal, and the inoautioas speeohes of Mr Winston Churchill, have once more brought emphatioially under public notioe the great problem that has to be solved in South Africa, and a problem which all loyal subjects of the Empire devoutly hopei' may be satisfactorily dealt with. A most interesting article, "The Native and the White in South Afrioa," written by Mr W. F. Bailey (Irish Laqd Commissioner), appears in the current number of

the Nineteenth Century Magazine. It is quite impossible in a brief article, suoh as this must necessarily be, to quote to any extent at all the various views and opinions expressed by the writer, and it is not surprising to find that in regard to so groat a question Mr Jtiaileydoes not appear to hold any very decided views. Mr Bailey really traverses the general position, and be does so in a most lucid and interesting manner. He says that there >s little difficulty in ascertaining the facts of the situation in South Africa as between European and native. The total number of whites in the various English Colonies south of the Zambesi does not exceed 1,250,000, while the ooloured race number over 5,000,000, a nroporfcion of nearly five natives to every white Derson. The whites are maiuly collected in a few populous centres, the ooloured people are scattered broadcast over the land in crowded locations, in the mining districts and on farms. No part of inhabited South Africa is without them, and all the lower manual work is carried on by them. As is always the case where an inferior race lives side by side with a superior, the latter soon looks upon unskilled labour as a^degradation.

Were there no coloured raoea in South Africa, it is probable that it, or at any rate a considerable part of it, would be a white man's land in the same sense as is Australia or California; that is, white men v/ould undertake all the work necessary for the industrial-development of the country. A field for permanent settlement by working men and farm labourers would thus be afforded. As long as all unskilled work is carried on by natives this cannot be. But the native is in South Afrioa in large and growing numbers, and there is no possible scheme that will get rid of him. Under these eircumstanoeSj the only class of immigrants that can come with safety to South Africa are persons with professions or trades, or who seek for employment by reason of their knowledge or some particular business. Were emigration to Australia or North America similarly restricted, these couu tries would never have had such a remarkable development. The emi grant who is attracted to a country by the high wages that are paid for special skill is apt to go with au animus revertendi, and such a person is in no sense a real colonist.

"We have, accordingly," continues the writer, "in South Afrioa, a small white and a large coloured population, the white dependent for its prosperity on the labour of the native, who is increasing at a relatively more rapid rate. This state of things may and does exist in other parts of the world without raising the peculiar problem that we have in Africa. It exists in India, but there the white man is not a permanennt factor in the population of the country, which he governs from his own laud, in his own way, and to a large extent independently of looal opinion. On the other hand, we have a similar state of affairs in Brazil, but there no distinction of colour or raoe is made. Every inhabitant stands equal as regards political and sooial rights and privileges. The country is governed from within, by the people, not from outside, and the race problem can hardly be said to arise. As soon as a community so situated acquires the right or duty to undertake the responsibility of self-government, the question of the relations of white and black has at onoe to be faced." That is the position that has been reached to-day in South Afrioa, and upon the satisfactory solution of the problem the permanency of British supremacy in that country seems almost to depend. That there is anything approaching a unanimity of thought upon the question among the "leaders" of the Empire seems doubtful, and not the least troublesome phrase of the momentous issue is the fact that the South Afrioan Colonies are evidently of opinion that they should be allowed to settle the native question in their own way, while the Imperial Government strongly holds the opinion that it should retain, that it, in fact, possesses, an over-ruling authority so far as the natives are concerned. :