(Continued from page 4) of delineating now a territory for future native occupation.
They too wish to secure a very large measure of separation between the Europeans and the natives. but to do so very gradually, and thus bring into being two communities largely independent of each other.
Their plan would be to reduce SO far as possible the amount of native labour employed, short of cutting it off altogether, and in the meanwhile to organise as wide a separation between the two races as possible within the existing geographical boundaries.
In the final arrangement, natives would he allowed into the European parts of South Africa only for the lowest and heaviest classes of labour, and meanwhile Europeans would he encouraged further and further to take their place.
While these changes were going on. the natives would be encouraged to set up a community life of their own in the Reserves and also. in the existing 1 erritories. Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland. if these could he brought under the control of the South African Government.
Since this is the most generally held solution at the present time we may consider how far it appears to be practicable.
MANY DOUBTS TN pursuance of this plan we are now witnessing the beginnings of an attempt to prevent the growth of further industries around the big towns of the Union. The purpose here is to check the present rapid growth of native populations in these areas. As things are at present. natives are prohibited by law from living in the towns where they work. ex
cept in the cases of a certain num ber of house servants. Instead, they are required to live in "dormitory " towns and locations built specially for them at a distance from the European towns which they serve.
Accordingly, the present argument is that it would be better to situate all future industries away from the towns, at the fringes of the European area, and close to the borders of the Reserves and of the Native Territories of Swaziland, Bechuanaland and Basutoland. which are at present controlled by the British Govesinment. The bulk of the native people would then be required to live in those areas, and would be allowed to cross the horsier only to do their daily work in the industries, or as migratory labour, indentured for a few months at a time, to carry on the heaviest and lowest classes of labour throughout the Union.
Apart from the shortage of skilled workers—aggravated by the exclusion of the natives from learning most skilled trades—the plan causes many doubts on the score of expense. New railways would have to be built. and this is no light undertaking in South Africa with its long distances.
There is the great expense also involved in rehabilitating the Reserves so that the large numbers who are to be placed in them could in fact live there. But. since the Reserves are already over-crowded and hadls eroded. the immense expense of re-habilitation will have to be undertaken in any case.
RACE WORSHIP
IT would he possible to write almost interminably on the difficulties of the present situation. and on those which face the present attempt to solve them; but enough has been said, perhaps, to make it clear that fundamentally the source of the problem is not so much in "colour" as in the " background" and numbers; but "colour" may he said to be the emblem of the problem, and latterly the worship of " race " has had its share in complicating the issue.
The present scheme to start removing the native people to the Reserves and encouraging them to build up a community life of their own there is part of a desperate effort to give the native people an opportunity to develop in an area where they will not he considered a danger to the European way of life. where social integration will he impossible and where a vote in the European Assembly will not be called for.
The present experiments in native education are part of the same plan.
How far all this racial discrimination and the plans based on it may be said to he just and charitable in the eyes of Almighty God is another matter altogether.In this article the effort has been simply to give a fair picture of the great problem that South Africa is facing.