If the Natives should rise.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume II, Issue 105, 6 February 1900, Page 3

If the Natives should rise.

Prom the two stubborn and deter mined white races that are engaged in the terrible struggle in South Airica, anxious eyes are frequently turned to the black population. In a recent issue of the •' Sciantific American," Mr Edgar Mels, formerly editor of the " Johannesburg Daily Nows," deals with the question of the present war from an American point of view. He points out that whichever party iB victorious, American commercial interests "will be benefited, unless there is a rising of the natives. •If that comes to pass, he says, South Africa will be a land of terror and desolation. At present the 1151 tribes are at peace with the white men, but whether they wu\ remain s'oit is impossible to pi edict. So long ad either the British or the Boers hold a decided supremacy, it seams, the natives are likely to remain quiet, but if the struggle between the armies should . be an internecine one, and if both side* are

decimated, " then," says Mv MeK c> tho world will 86* » ri'rinej of native;* compared with which the Indian Mutiny will be insignificant " It is estimated th«jt to suppress such arising of the natives of South Afeioß, aa army of a million men would be nen«ss.iiy. the Matabeles. the Mashonas, Brisotos, Zulus, Swir/fc. Anmtonga«s l Khamn's men, and th« other eWcn hundred orid tribes coiOd put tv-'o million men men in th< fip)ri. ft\ory nne brnvt to th<^ jon it of folU ?vl : c-virv onp fitoc 1 . viiili - i J '^ i ,v\.c li '-•■ (^ of the tyrant P.oer " 7 !■ t"nou>Mufl killi^l in b^ltlo n«ni'<? r .t qhn M <«. avtl.uiohf 5 of bl^i-'k^. Th(»\ v/>> ( 'i," ciu-h the whiK ;u;d " l , f . 1i > v-> ; • acj in Sourh Afura v. cm'-J b » th.n *. tUn{J of hlitOlV. ftiu. pi '>!),-(.,] x r l\irt bpttor piirt of a cnrihuv "/oul<3 b(* isqnv cd to i .^toi'e tho old 01 d< j r of things, In Zululand alono two chiefs, Dinizulu and Uhibenn, control tho raovemeuts of a rorco more than three times the numbei of out 1 Army Corps. The natives in this part ot the country are attracting more than ordinary atton lion for ominous inutcenngs have rt.U*^i.i> been Teard fiom thena The Biitish rpveises of J BBl and the recent letrpst, from ihc> noilhern part of Natal fail to have a somewhat bad cifrct on ihe Znlu r -i, who know nothing of military tactics, and aro influenced .by what oppeftrs to be physical superiority. Still, they have a lively leooll'cuoo uf tho .:jLii^niti'js heaped upon them by the Bceri. in the pasfe, and they cannot, forget tho kind butt tiriu treatment thsy have received at ip hands of the British. It ,5 to bo hipdd tln,t tha ardva! of an ovefwhslmi'ip; British forca wil oiioUi'* ;,hviiL i^l'.jdieiic-j find newt'ahty.