Say It out Loud - The 1912 Presidential Address, Johannesburg, Transvaal, 1st January, 1912

From the book: Say It out Loud by Mohamed Adhikari

The 1912 Presidential Address, Johannesburg, Transvaal, 1st January, 1912 ¹

Since our last Congress the march of events has, from our point of view, been rapid. Many Acts of momentous importance have taken place, and the chief feature that affects the Coloured man is the unmistakable evidence that is being daily accumulated, proving that he is regarded by the general body of white men as a pariah ­ banned from society, banned from the Dutch Reformed Church, banned from facilities for educating his children, banned from the privilege to be imposed on all citizens of joining the standing army of his country, and doomed to a condition worse than slavery.

This condition of affairs, Coloured South Africans deeply deplore. The attitude of mind adopted by the general body of white men, they resent. They cannot fail to discern signs that the European and the Coloured sections of the country are daily drifting further apart into hostile camps. Coloured South Africans argue that they are sons of the soil, amongst them are to be found the truly indigenous races of South Africa; that the country is theirs as much as it is that of the first white settlers, be they Dutch or Huguenot or English; and that if the Europeans may formulate what they euphemistically call a "Native Policy", then it is time that they, the Coloured races, state in precise terms what line of action they will pursue in the future.

Such action on their part, whether they have the right to independent thought or not, is the inevitable result of the attitude adopted by the Europeans. Year after year resolutions to effect closer union among all Coloured races are sent up for discussion to our Conference, and if Europeans persist in their policy of repression, there will one day arise a solid mass of Black and Coloured humanity, whose demands will be irresistible.

" THE INEVITABLE CLASH "

The leaders of the European section of the community are quite aware of this movement, and it seems that they are preparing for the clash that will inevitably "happen along" some day, as Americans would say. That clash will come whenever the whites think it advisable and practicable to begin a war of extermination. That is as true as that the sun will rise to-morrow, or as any other fact of the physical universe. Our present Conference, therefore, if it takes into consideration this aspect of the relation between whites and Coloured, and if it decides on laying down a policy of concerted action for Coloured and Native, will ever be remembered as a great landmark in our history.

To ensure peace, one must prepare for war. Hence, before parting, we should lay the foundation of a Coloured Races' Union, just as Europeans have their basis of union in the iniquitous South Africa Act. It is imperative, therefore, that we should, before we part, or in the near future, decide what is to be our own policy, our relationship to the governing section of the community. We must draw up, in definite, clear-cut lines, what position we shall consent to occupy in the industrial, social, and political life of South Africa, and what amount of co-operation we shall give to the whites in the work of developing the country.

Why should we sit still and listen to Europeans discussing our position, civil, industrial, religious, and economic? Is it right that we should have nothing to say, but with silent submission and may-be with a humble thanksgiving spirit, accept any condition to which our magnanimous rulers should deign to relegate us? Now, though some few of our people may still think that we should continue our docile spirit, I know that an overwhelming majority of us feel as all human beings must feel. " The brutallest black African " says Carlyle, "cannot bear that he should be used unjustly. No man can bear it, or ought to bear it. A deeper law than any parchment-law whatsoever, a law written direct by the hand of God in the inmost being of man, incessantly protests against it." I say it is asking too much to expect quiet submission to the Europeans.

POLICY OF REPRESSION

Europeans claim that they hold the land by conquest, and that they have an indefeasible right to exercise a sort of benevolent despotism over the Coloured races. But this benevolent despotism, translated into action in South Africa, as it has ever been in every part of the world where it obtained, means much despotism and little benevolence. One cannot help being astounded at the utter disregard by Europeans of the lessons to be learned in history. "If we examine, " says Carlyle; " we shall find that in this world no conquest could ever become permanent which did not withal show itself beneficial to the conquered as well as to conquerors. "

The ninth annual conference of the APO held at Johannesburg in 1972

Again, so far as I have read history, there has never been a nation, or rather a territory ­ for South Africa is not yet a nation ­ in which a fivefold majority of the population has so willingly and unselfishly worked for the development of the country's resources, has contributed so much to that development, and has received such scant treatment at the hands of the Government authorities. It is time, therefore, that just as the whites propound what they term a native policy, that is, a statement of what they intend our position to be, we should also set forth a clear statement of the attitude we intend to adopt towards the country and its development; and we may call that policy "Our White Policy." The sooner that is done, the sooner the two sections will understand each other, and our patriotism for the country may not be altogether deadened.

THREE GREAT PROBLEMS

Let us make a rapid review of the problems, which form the staple of discussion at present. They are practically three in number. They concern language, nationality, and the Native problem. They are all of some importance to the Coloured people and the Native races of the country. The first is a subject which produces a great amount of irritation between the Dutch and the British sections of the white community; and the Dutch section appear to regard the question of nationality as largely dependent upon that of language. They are as tenacious of their language rights as of anything. They appear determined to sacrifice the progress of the country in the interests of language rights. Yet a little reflection would convince them of the absurdity of their attitude to this problem. No homogeneous nation can ever be evolved, so long as different sections speak different languages. That seems to be a fact that has not yet penetrated the intellects of those who direct the destinies of this land. For centuries South Africa has, except in a very few restricted areas, led a somnolent life, and it is evidently the opinion of a vast section of the community that the same sleepy inaction can best be maintained by their insistence on the maintenance of a language that is without any definite agreed-upon grammar and void of a literature. Think of the state of our pastoral industry compared with that of Australia, which drew its original small stock of merino sheep from the Cape. There the flocks number millions to our thousands; the sheep are of world-recognised merit; the wool industry is the admiration of the world. Similarly, the wheat production is marvellous, both in quality and magnitude. The history of that country dates back but 120 years, while the Cape prides itself on more than two centuries of unbroken annals. But what little progress it has made compared with Australia? And one of the chief causes that has retarded its progress is undoubtedly

THE LANGUAGE QUESTION

The existence of two languages is certainly antagonistic to the rapid development of a country. Supporters of bilingualism that Canada has made marvellous progress, and yet it is a bilingual country may point it out. But there are vast qualifications that must be considered when an analogy between Canada and South Africa is sought; and the progress of Canada might even have been greater than it has been had the population been homogeneous in race and religion and language. The bilingualism of Canada is, however, vastly different from that of South Africa. In Canada there exists a French section of the community inhabiting a well-defined area of territory. In South Africa the Dutch and English overlap in every dorp, mingle in every district as regards residence, but are hostile in social views, the one being imbued with progressive views, the other steeped in old-world stagnation. French, further, is a language with a literature. It is a language of refinement and culture; while Dutch as spoken in South Africa is but a patois without any literature. Canadian loyalty and nationalism, such as it is, is also largely influenced and strengthened by the adjacency of the powerful United States; while South Africa has no powerful external factor compelling the population to national development ­ the sinking of difference in the face of an ever imminent dread of absorption or extinction by a strong contiguous power. These two questions of language and nationality are inextricably associated. No true nationalism can arise in a sparsely populated country by two or more races, speaking different languages and priding themselves on their exclusiveness.

GENERAL BOTHA'S TALK

Recently, since his return from England, General Botha, the Prime Minister of the Union, has been talking in his usual ambiguous, vague style. The Almighty, he assumes, is on the side of the Nationalist party; and General Botha has declared that we have now in the Union "one nation, one country, one God." We wonder that he did not say that General Hertzog was doing his best to bring about one language also.

With regard to the formation of a nation, an eminent historian said: " Our English nation is combined of the product of several populations ... Each has exercised an important influence in determining our national character and our national institutions. It is not until we reach the period when these elements were thoroughly fused and blended together that the history of the English can properly be said to begin ... In the thirteenth century our English language, such as it still is, became the mother tongue of every Englishman, whether of Norman or of Saxon origin. It was during this century that Parliaments were first summoned ... It is clear, therefore, that it is at this period that our true nationality commences; for our history, from this time forth, is the history of a national life, then complete and still in being. All before this is mere history of elements and the process of their fusion. "

The real history of the English nation, as a developing homogeneous whole, took place at the same period as the adoption of one dialect as the standard national language. The origin of a true spirit in South Africa will also take place, whether or not the Coloured people and the Native races are to be excluded, then and only then, when one language has been adopted.

The question naturally arises which is to be the national language. Shall it be the degraded form of a literary language, a vulgar patois; or shall it be that language which Macaulay says is " In force, in richness in aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece alone?" Shall it be the language of the "Kombuis" or the language of Tennyson? That is, shall it be the Taal or English?

WHAT THE HERTZOGS THINK

Of course the Hertzogs think that they can force any language on a nation. They evidently know nothing of the principles of a national language. They may meet with success partial and temporary; but even that can be attained only by a system of crushing out all the vigour of a community and driving away its population. The re-action will come. No mere handful of people can at this period of the world's history live an antediluvian style of life. The days of Arcadian bliss are past, even for a bucolic people. Those who have been lagging behind, whether in social customs or in industrialism, or in progress towards religious freedom, will be swept aside by the currents of events; and a people who adopt the Taal are bound to sink back into the stage of decadent rust and mediaevalism.

Now, this problem of language concerns our people, and I think it should be the aim of all our members to seek to cultivate the English tongue wherever and whenever practicable or possible. Why so large a proportion of our people, who, to my knowledge, have facility in English fall into the habit of talking to one another in Cape Dutch, I cannot understand. Such a habit is not conducive to progressive thought, and it should be discouraged. ­ Remember that our South African nation must be composed of various races of different colours; and all the talk about racialism indulged in by the Europeans concerns only that spirit of deadly antagonism that exists between British and Dutch. Language is being used by one section as the means whereby that bitterness may be perpetuated, and yet I have no hesitation in saying that even the most violent enthusiast for the Taal would admit the superiority of the English language; but the Dutchman loves to cling to his broad acres, and he loathes the progressive spirit which would mean a closer settlement of people on the land, the diminution in extent of his unused morgens, and the inevitable necessity for further effort and energy being put forth by himself. He is urged, therefore, to cling to his language, and the motive behind it all is to accentuate the narrowness and bitterness of a racial bias that moves the Boer so deeply.

COLOURED RACES AND CITIZENSHIP

This antagonism between the whites cannot long continue without a huge upheaval, but it may be cleverly concealed for a time till the Coloured races are relegated to a lower, more prostrate condition than they at present occupy. However, in the end, the difficulty of governing a populous section of the community by a mere handful of arrogant overlords will arise. That difficulty will be found impossibility, and it is my duty as a patriotic South African, a son of the soil, to call attention to the folly of the public procedure of the past few years. No South African nation can be formed of which the Coloured races are not an integral part, having full recognition of all claims to citizenship. No nation can exist which is not homogeneous as regards its citizens in respect of their rights and their liberties.

Apart, however, from the language question as affecting nationality, the problem that has more direct interest for us is that which is known as the Native problem. It may well be asked ­ What is the Native problem? Now, it seems to me that the phrase has various meanings, and that every section of the community attaches to it a different meaning. To the mine-owner it means one thing; but it has a vastly different meaning to the farmer. The white worker uses it again in an entirely different sense, as also does the Dutch Reformed Predikant. Each creates his own problem, and then endeavours it solves it according to his own idea. With the mine-owner it is primarily a question of securing cheap labour. To obtain big dividends, cost of production must be reduced, and that can be best affected by cheap labour. The farmers' Native problem is the adoption of the best method of keeping the Coloured people and the Native races as serfs on his land.

DUTCH PREDIKANT'S AIM

The Dutch Predikant's aim is to make the Coloured man travel in a different compartment on his journey to Heaven, where there will be no Colour question, and where He who sits on the right hand of His Father is not "of European descent," born of the Virgin Mary who, according to the Breviary of a great section of the Christian Church, was Nigra sed formosa ­ that is, black but beautiful. The white workers' aim is to prevent the Coloured man from ever emerging from the unskilled labour stage, so that the white artisan may have the monopoly of the skilled labour market. They are all beautifully inconsistent and gloriously impracticable.

But there is nothing new in all this farrago of nonsense. Years ago the Native question was discussed in South Africa, sometimes with temperate language, sometimes most intemperately. More than forty years ago, a writer in the Cape Monthly Magazine thus expressed himself in an article entitled "Native Labour and Native Policy": "This, if not the greatest and most difficult, is one of the most important questions of the day. It is not a question that has arisen suddenly or unexpectedly, but one of long standing; it has been handled annually in Parliament for many years, and it is every day discussed in our newspapers by editors and others. From these writers and speakers we have had many representatives concerning the insufficient supply of labour, suggestions for increasing the supply, how it may be done, and so on, without much being accomplished thereby to effect the object aimed at. The opinions and views of public writers and speakers on the subject are diverse, and vary, both in regard to the description of the labourer best suited to our requirements and the measures that should be adopted for supplying the requisite number. The only platform upon which all stand agreed is this, that the prosperity of the country is retarded for a want of a sufficient supply of labour, and that something ought to be done to remedy the evil. "

NATIVES AND LABOUR

Thus you will see that this cry which we hear so persistently preached at the present time that the Coloured people and the Native races will be forced to work for the whites is no new one. Every Native Affairs Commission, every measure for the securing of labour, has been nothing but an endeavour to induce the Natives to come out of their homes and reserves and work as mere serfs. The irony of the whole situation is that all the writers and speakers who profess to deal authoritatively with the question admit that the progress and development of the country depend on Native labour. They talk an infinite deal of nonsense about the dignity of labour, while they seek to do anything but dignify the Native labourer. Anything rather than give him comfortable surroundings, opportunity to elevate himself, wages commensurate with his work is the aim of the white employers of labour. What they seek is to keep the Coloured worker as a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water ­ a serf.

Large employers of labour are constantly heard to declare that in a young country like South Africa there should be a large section of non-free non-citizen labourers. The same writer in the Cape Monthly Magazine, from whom I quoted above, says: "It is undeniable, and it is no use to disguise the fact, that a large number of persons amongst us who employ or desire to employ labour, hold to the opinion that there ought to be a class of people who should not be permitted to be free men and free women, who should be forced by coercive laws to work for others on such wages as those choose to pay ... These people constantly hold up to view and expect others to admire as they do, the laws of the neighbouring independent states, upon the subject ... You will not there see, say they, as you do every day here, in the Cape Colony, every day of your life, a black brute pass a white man without taking off his hat and saying, 'Dag, baas.' The Native must be made to work, and not allowed to live in idleness, and they must enact laws to effect this. "

FORTY YEARS AGO AND NOW

In that light did the employers of labour view the Coloured man more than forty years ago; and, sad to say, the position has not much changed, nor have the views. Just consider for a few moments what we have recently heard from public platforms in various parts of the country. Mr. Davel, at Ermelo, at a meeting of the Farmers' Association, read an address on the Native problem. It was given wide publicity, and reproduced almost in every daily paper. "The most serious question facing the farming community," said Mr. Davel, " in this country is undoubtedly the one of labour. Farming is at present stationary; it is not progressing; and very shortly it will go back as the want of labour is being felt more keenly every season. In fact, the situation is becoming desperate. We all know we are badly in need of labour. We all think we know something about the Native question, but, as a matter of fact, we know very little. "

Thus, you see, Mr. Davel's views are similar to those held forty years ago. He also links up the progress of farming with the Native labour supply; and the Native question with the Davels is simply one of obtaining a supply of cheap farm labourers. I am dealing with Mr. Davel's paper at length, not because he is a recognised authority on Native affairs ­ on the contrary, he is quite unknown to us ­ but because his views are those held universally by the present farming community of South Africa and by those of forty years ago. Now, Mr. Davel went further than the consideration of the insufficiency of the labour supply. He even ventured to assign causes for the shortage of farm labour, and he set forth three causes for such. His first reason was that even under normal conditions the possible supply is less than the demand.

FARMERS AND UPLIFTING OF THE NATIVE

He alleged that the mines were being supplied with labour to the detriment of the farmers. His third reason for the present undue scarcity was the operation of the share system of farming. You will thus see that the Davel type of farmer, and they form the majority of the present farmers of the country, is utterly opposed to any idea of the uplifting of the industrial or social condition of the Native, who, in the opinion of all such men, is doomed for ever to be a mere landless serf. Further, Mr. Davel's mode of remedying the present state of affairs, though amusing, is by no means novel. He would put restrictions on recruitment for the mines. He thinks that the Native will not work unless he is forced to do so, unless under compulsion. His wants must therefore be increased, says Mr. Davel, and he will then be obliged to work. All Natives in the territories, in the reserves, and also those on unoccupied lands, should be forced to pay a tax of £2 per hut and a poll tax of £ l. Mr. Davel would even go further. He would stop Kaffir farming altogether, and would make every farmer pay £2 10s. per head for every unnecessary Native on his property. The idea of taxing the Native into work is not, as I have already said, new. In 1874 the Pass Laws came up for discussion in the Transvaal Volksraad. Mr. Munnik then said that the time had come when Kaffirs must be made to work, and the only way to effect this was to raise the charge of a pass to £5 or £7 10s. Mr. Kock said that while it appeared that there was no remedy but raising the price of the pass, he still saw great difficulties in the way. But he suggested that the only way to get the law enforced was to establish a strong border police.

" WHAT IS SAUCE ­ "

Thus, because the Coloured man or the Native will not chase the farmer for work at a shilling a day, he meets with abuse. No position was ever more illogical. The very object of industrial inventions and improvements is to minimise the drudgery of toil. The aim of all whites is to gain a living with as little work as possible. But what they practise is not what they preach to the simple Native. "If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes 'palaces": and Free State hells would be heaven on earth. What is sauce for the black goose ought to be sauce for the white gander; if drudgery, if compulsory toil, forced labour, or any other disguised form of industrial slavery is bad for whites, then it is bad for any human being, no matter what may be the colour of his skin. But, alas! The wretched farm labourer is treated like a thing that is

" Cursed from its birth, even from its cradle doomed

To abjectness and bondage. "

The most miserable specimen of the Coloured man is the product of the farmer; and a study of the Native Squatting Act, which is to be submitted to the Union Parliament at the forthcoming session, is intended to make the Coloured farm labourer even more abject than ever. Its sole object is to provide cheap labour for farmers. Its direct effect on the Natives will be to drive thousands of them off the land. Its elastic provisions have been framed to meet the varying conditions of the different provinces.

In the Zoutpansberg district of the Transvaal there are over 350,000 Natives. Of that number 90,000 are on Government farms and Crown lands, and 168,000 on private farms owned by individuals or land companies. European farmers are offended by the presence of the Natives on these lands, and they complain that the Natives prefer squatting on these lands to hiring themselves to the farmers. They claim that there is more than sufficient labour squatting on farms of absentee landlords, whilst they cannot secure Natives to act on their farms as permanent labourers. The agitation for the application of such laws as the

NATIVE SQUATTING LAW

Comes from the farmer who wants labour; and frequently from farmers who, owing to their bad reputation, are unable to induce Natives to settle on their farms. The Transvaal Volksraad passed the Squatters Law of the Transvaal in order to do away with this complaint of the farmers, but it was never enforced. " It was an unpractical law to begin with, " says Mr. King, one of the witnesses before the Select Committee of Native Affairs, April 1911, " even if the Government had been able to enforce it, and in the case of the late Republican Government they attempted to enforce it, and it was a failure. General Joubert was in charge of the Native Affairs at the time. He attempted to enforce it then, and it was failure. Sir Godfrey Lagden tried to enforce it, and it was a failure. The late Transvaal Government tried to enforce it, and it was a failure. General Joubert failed because he could not enforce it without a war. "

Mr. King struck at the root of the whole labour problem when he said they (the farmers) should make the conditions more acceptable. It is merely a matter of inducement. If they (the farmers, without labourers) will provide the same inducement as this one man (the farmer with 500 Natives on his farm), these people will work for them. The evidence has disclosed another point. In many instances Natives have been squatting on Crown lands for very many years. The farms have since been sold by the Transvaal Government to whites, with the result that the Natives have since been forcibly

DRIVEN OFF THE LAND

In one instance a white settler acquired a farm in the Zoutpansberg from the Transvaal Government. " Acquiring " here probably, means paying next to nothing for the land. Under Mr. Rissik's administration about two years ago, over 1,000 Natives who had been living peaceably on that land were removed. Whether the enforcement of the Squatters' Law throughout the Union will have the effect of supplying farmers with cheap labour, and thus solving their Native problem, is questionable. One thing is certain, however, namely, hundreds of thousands will be driven off the land into already overcrowded locations. What has been impracticable in the old Republican days without a war, can now be achieved without any trouble. This is one of the many blessings which General Botha predicted the Native would derive from Union.

But, though the Coloured farm labourer has been degraded by the condition of his service, the Rand has similarly had a demoralising effect upon the Native. He is wrenched from the home ties that are conducive to a simple, unaffected, natural life. He spends a sunless existence in an unwholesome mine, and contracts disease. He receives his first lesson in committing the oldest sins in the newest ways, and returns home in many instances with vices which never entered his unsophisticated mind before. And I contend that the unnatural conditions under which thousands are living on the Rand, and their unwholesome moral surroundings, are mainly responsible for what is called the Black Peril.

ATTITUDE OF LABOUR PARTY

I have now to add a few words about the attitude of the self-styled Party of South Africa towards Coloured workers. White workers hold that they have a monopoly of skilled work, and that such monopoly must remain theirs for all time. Surely they are not so crass of intelligence as not to be able to see that the boundaries of industrial employments cannot be fixed arbitrarily, and that men cannot be divided into separate water-tight compartments according to their skin-colour, and each compartment have specially assigned to it a certain class of work. Just let such men study the conditions that prevail in Cape Town. They will find that some skilled trades have a vast majority of Coloured hands in the ranks of their workers, and that none is entirely in the hands of whites. "But," say some of the leaders of the trades on the Rand, "we are not going to have such a state of affairs in Johannesburg." To such I would reply that you cannot stop it. The man who possesses the necessary skill and taste for any trade or profession, whatever his colour, will get there, despite all regulations and all prejudices; and it would be to the interest of the white artisan to throw down all barriers based on colour, and recognise the necessity for union amongst all workers, with a view to securing increased wages, shorter hours, and better conditions for work. By continuing the insane policy of setting some classes of wage earners against others, the white labour party is merely playing into the hands of the capitalist.

So far, I have always shown you the reasons for the attitude adopted by the mine owner, by the farmer, and by the white artisan to the Coloured labourer. They all talk as if they believe the Coloured man to be infinitely inferior to the white, and the prejudice they entertain towards the Coloured and Blacks is most unreasonable. Here there is no inter-racial ethical code to keep this prejudice within reasonable bounds. It pays the exploiter to foment this feeling of prejudice, so that he may all the more unnoticed pursue his own selfish interest. It is his concern to fill the white skilled artisan with bitter hatred against honest toil, so that he may have the chance of using only cheap labour in unskilled employment. The farmer's benighted ignorance can hardly be expected to be free from prejudice. Many people, however, entertain a prejudice based on passion. They assert their own supremacy, and declare their intention of maintaining that supremacy by declining to recognise any non-white as a citizen. With a hollow casuistic plea some of the white aristocrats talk about their being the chosen race, whose divine mission is to protect and uplift the Native, while others, with more brutal frankness, speak of the conquered races as an inferior people, and act as if this alleged inferiority were a reason for the repressive legislation.

There are, however, in every nation of conquerers even some few humanitarians, men actuated by no other desire than the upliftment of the human race. These are few and far between; and even South Africa can point to such men and women. England has always produced a good percentage of such men; and these, together with the few whom we have in South Africa have succeeded in keeping a salutary check on more unscrupulous sections. By the action of such men slavery was abolished. By their efforts were we placed on a legal equality with Europeans, and subsequently admitted to full political and civil rights, though in effecting the Union of South Africa these rights were somewhat curtailed.

As a result of the action of these humanitarians in securing the abolition of slavery, we had the Great Trek, which led to the settlement of the northern Province. These " Voortrekkers " went away from the Cape for the sole reason that they resented the liberal Native policy of England and of the Cape. From that date we have had two different methods of treating the Native races of South Africa.

CAPE NATIVE POLICY

We have had the Cape policy, which left the door of political rights open to all, irrespective of colour, and none who entered by that door ever discredited the wisdom of that policy. We have also the Transvaal Native and Orange Free State policy, and I would ask any body of reasonable men who have given any honest thought to the matter, which has proved to be the better policy? There can be but one answer, and that is, even basing it on the low economical ground as to which is the better asset ­ the Coloured races of the Cape or the other Provinces ­ that the Cape policy is the better, more conducive to stability and peace, and more likely to lead to rapid national development on sound lines.

In other parts of the world, I do not hesitate to say that the Coloured man does not receive just recognition for his contribution in labour even to the world. The construction of the Assouan Dam was carried out almost entirely by Coloured labour. There are 25,000 Negroes working at the Panama Canal without receiving their due meed of recognition; and in South Africa, too, what a miserable recognition is accorded to the Native worker for all he does in the diamond mines, the gold mines, and the farms. This condition of affairs cannot long continue. The oppressive nature of recent legislation, the attitude of the Church, the curtailment of our political rights, the failure to meet legitimate demands for education ­ all these are producing a condition of affairs, the result of which will be startling. The Coloured races are rapidly beginning to see the necessity for union. That union is the only means of securing due self-protection.

PASSIVE HATRED

The amount of irritation produced in the mind of the Native of late is surprising, and there is a deep-seated feeling of passive hatred being engendered therein against the white races. A pause must be made in this anti-colour policy, or ere long that passive hatred will show itself in active resistance. Such an issue must be dreaded.

From what I have said, it can be seen that the Native problem means simply the attitude which the various sections of the white population of the country adopt towards the Native as a worker in developing the country in their own interests; and when General Botha recently promised in response to the clamours of the farmers for more labour, to introduce legislation that would secure that object, he was simply promising them that he would devise some legislative machinery that would give them cheap Native labour and plenty of it. At the Nationalist Congress he promised to tackle the labour problem. He said: "The question is asked where shall we get our labour? Well, if we put our heads together we shall solve the labour question as it is being solved the entire world over. In the first place, there must be legislation, and the Government will bring in such legislation next session regarding ' squatting ' in South Africa. "

The Congress loudly cheered this pronouncement. Presumably because it will drive thousands of Natives off the land into the clutches of the farmers; and there can be no doubt that the provisions of the proposed Native Squatting Bill, to which I have already referred, are intended to produce this result as quickly and as effectively as possible. What is more, General Botha knows quite well that under the Union Act, Government has power to enact legislation that will not only bar the Native for ever from any participation in political rights and liberty, but will make him a helot for ever. Soon after the publication of the Act, which the Imperial authorities were duped into accepting. General Botha declared that though the Native question was not solved, they, the framers of the Act, had erected the necessary machinery whereby the whole Native problem might be solved. Little did the Imperial Government dream that they were putting into the hands of the politicians of South Africa so powerful a weapon for repression. In previous times, the Republican of the North feared to enforce the Squatting Laws, but apparently the Citizen Army will be able to accomplish what was impossible to the Staats Artillerie.

But there are other directions in which the Botha Government is unjustly trying to drive Coloured workers into the hands of farmers. For instance, it is in response to the insistent demands of farmers for labour that over 3,000 Coloured railway employees have been displaced by poor whites. It is simply a ruse to compel, if possible, the Coloured workers to hire themselves out for a living to the farmer; and our friends in Parliament should have something to say on the matter, seeing that the change means the appointment of an inferior class of labourers at higher pay. This is most iniquitous treatment of the Coloured workers. It is an unjust preference to whites. Again, the tendency is everywhere apparent in the Civil Service to oust the Coloured worker. Take, for instance, the displacing of Coloured interpreters by whites. There can be no doubt that the unequal treatment accorded to white and Coloured Civil servants is intended to make the Coloured employees disgusted with the service, and so to force them to leave. The whole policy is, moreover specially designed to solve the farmer's Native problem, which, as I have shown, means nothing neither more nor less than the obtaining of an abundant supply of cheap black labour.

Admitting, however, that it is desirable that all sections of a nation should work, that no class should be idle, that no water-tight compartments precluding anyone from passing from one class of work to another can be everlastingly permanent, that all repression is not only iniquitous, but nationally suicidal, but that the vast majority of the Native races will for many years to come supply the ranks of unskilled labour, we might venture to suggest a few reforms or remedies needful to secure a regular and adequate supply of labour. The first of these is that a thorough change in the feelings of the white towards the black races must be effected. The whites must cease to regard them as a sort of animal, nearer akin to brute beasts than to human beings.

HOW TO ESTABLISH LASTING PEACE

They must make up their minds that the blacks are human beings, and as such may be, as the white races have been, raised from the depths of savageism to a higher state of usefulness. They will have to abandon the present practice of refusing to allow Coloured children to mix with white children in public schools, merely because their skins are not of the same colour. They must drop the present practice of excluding Coloured people from worshipping in the same churches. They must attract the Coloured races by showing them that, while their services are desired, there is also a desire to elevate them socially, politically, and industrially. Given such a state of affairs, the cry about insufficient labour supplies would soon cease. It is hoped that the politician of the Union will see that such remedies are the only ones that will establish contentment and lasting peace. Unless they are adopted, bitter occasion may arise for the people to explore their folly.

As I said at the beginning of my address, I think it is imperative that this Congress should draft a statement of the broad principles, which should clearly define the basis on which we shall carry on the fight for our political and civil rights. Those principles must be clearly and explicitly set forth, and such statements should be scattered broadcast throughout South Africa, with the object of effecting a Union of all Coloured and Native races of South Africa. To the whites of South Africa I would say:

" Deem our people brutes no longer,

Till some reason ye shall find,

Worthier of regard and stronger

Than the colour of our kind.

Slaves of gold, whose sordid dealings

Tarnish all your boasted powers,

Prove that you have human feelings

Ere you proudly question ours. "

To my own people, I would repeat the advice given in my last presidential address, and say that you should do your best to build up the character of your children by making your homes healthy and happy; that you should spare no expense in your endeavours to secure the best education for your offspring; and that you should steadily persevere in seeking to maintain a high reputation as honest, law-abiding citizens, and

" ... if the will and sovereignty of God

Bid suffer it awhile, and kiss the rod,

Wait for the dawning of a brighter day,

And snap the chain the moment when you may. "