Britain's Negro Problem

BRITAIN’S Negro problem is limited almost entirely to the African Continent. The territorial responsibility in the whole continent covers about 3,500,000 square miles, equal to the United States of America, including Alaska and Hawaii. Within that area, 40,000,000 Negroes present hundreds of problems, of ever-increasing complexity. It is true that, up to the present time, Great Britain has been spared the odium of racial riots and lynchings; but racial antagonisms are, in some respects, more violent in character, and, in certain areas, are more deep-seated, and the economic effect more widely distributed, than in the American Continent.

But easily the most striking fact is that within the British African territories can be found the most antagonistic policies, with the most diverse results. In one territory, white men own all the land, and the natives none at all; in another territory, the natives own all the land, and the whites can only with difficulty obtain terminable leases; in yet another territory, the natives have the franchise, while, in the adjoining territory, under the same Government, they are denied the vote; in one territory, well-to-do Negroes rejoice in luxurious motor-cars, and travel where they will, while in another region, the Negro may not walk along the foot path; in one area, there are ‘Jim Crow’ cars; in another, most Negroes ride firstclass on the railways. To the student of British Negro problems, there seems little hope of avoiding a great upheaval, with disastrous consequences to Negro and white alike.

I

Britain’s most successful efforts are in the Dependencies of West Africa and Basutoland. In the Victorian era, colonial territories under the British Crown were placed in the following categories: (a) Dominions (self-governing); (b) Crown Colonies (annexed territories); (c) Protectorates; and (d) Spheres of Influence. With the absorption of spheres of influence, and other changes, the colonial territories are now grouped under the two D’s — Dominions and Dependencies.

The West African Dependencies — Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, and Nigeria — are occupied by about 17,000,000 Negroes, of whom, only some 5,000,000 are British subjects. These Negroes are intensely loyal to the British Government; they are now quite peaceful, and their affluence has become the wonder of Africans throughout the Continent. It is probable that several hundred Negroes possess regular incomes varying from $20,000 to $50,000 a year. I know one of these who made no less than $200,000 in one year!

The basis of Negro prosperity in British West Africa lies in a recognition of native land-rights, and in the illimitable value of the vegetable products of the primeval forests and the native plantations — chiefly the oil-palm and cocoa. The vegetable oil and wine trade goes back to the time of Pharaoh Necho, whose flotilla journeyed to West Africa for the wine so essential to the embalming of Egypt’s holy dead; doubtless, a good deal also went overland by caravan, but the boat journey was the quicker of the two. This trade started in the pre-Christian era, passed from Egyptian into Phœnician, then Portuguese, later into Spanish, then Dutch, and now into French-AmericanBritish hands; the oil and wine from the palm trees, used originally for preserving the dead, now finds its way into margarine and scented soaps, while in cash value it represents about $50,000,000 per annum.

First among the trees of Africa is the oil-palm, first in beauty, first in utility, and first in fertility. Queen of forest, and plain, the Elaeis guineensis fascinates the traveler she so loves to befriend — her graceful fronds, like some fluttering banner, greet him from the hill-top; she stands friendly sentinel on the outskirts of the native village; while her graceful beauty is equaled by her overflowing bounty. Is the traveler athirst and weary? her luxurious foliage gives him shelter, while from her treetrunk pours forth a draught of foaming wine. Is the traveler without meat? then her nut-oil and palm-cabbage provide a meal fit for a sylvan prince. What will you, merchant, traveler, native? a loin-cloth, a tool, a mat, a roof, a wall, a house, a fortune, or a sylvan picture? These, and more, are to be found in the oil-palm of West Africa; and it is estimated so numerous and prolific are these palms — that less than five per cent of the harvest is gathered to-day!

The oil-palm of West Africa rears herself in straight cylindrical form, her porous trunk scarred by fallen leaf-bases, to a maximum height, of about seventy feet. At the base is the enormous root, resembling a huge cocoanut mat: in tracing out individual roots, they are found to reach thirty-five feet and more from the base. The lofty stem, from thirty to fifty inches in diameter, is crowned by twenty to thirty leaves ten to fourteen feet long, each leaf carrying scores of leaflets arranged on both sides of its flexible midrib. At the base of these leaves, firmly embedded in the crown, is to be found the source of West African wealth, the bunch of oil-nuts. The nuts, about the size of a walnut, cluster in hundreds, sometimes as many as 2000, round the central cone, and together form a single head of fruit as large as a straw beehive, and weighing well over half a hundredweight.

The kernel of the nut, the size and shape of an almond, gives a white oil, which forms the basis of much of the ‘pure Spanish olive oil’ of commerce. The kernel is enclosed in a hard shell, not unlike, but much harder than, a peach-stone, which is in turn clothed with a mass of oleaginous fibre, the whole encased in a strong red and black skin. It is from the latter fibre that the railway constructor of the Victorian period obtained his lubricating oil; that the soap merchant of twenty years ago obtained his raw material; that the chemist of ten years ago produced margarine; and from it, in 1916-18, Sir Douglas Haig obtained his high explosives for the battles of Vimy, Passendeale, Cambrai, and the ‘Drocourt Switch.’

The second main source of Negro wealth in Africa is cocoa. The romance of the West African cocoa industry is now common knowledge, but its magnitude is little recognized. The Gold Coast Colony and Nigeria are the two British cocoa-producing areas, and the Gold Coast is the more remarkable of the two. Export from the Gold Coast began in 1891, with a single bag of beans weighing 80 pounds only; but by 1903 the Colony was tenth on the list of the 23 cocoa-producing countries of the world. In 1906, it was seventh; in 1909, it had crept up to fifth; in 1911, it assumed the world’s lead, with 120,000,000 pounds, or sufficient to supply over one third of the world’s consumption. The total value of the out put of cocoa from the Gold Coast alone, for the years 1911 to 1920, was close upon $200,000,000, the whole of which has been produced by the 1,000,000 Negroes of the territory, as Sir Hugh Clifford, late Governor of the Gold Coast Colony, says.

When it is remembered that cocoa cultivation is, in the Gold Coast and in Ashanti, a purely native industry; that there is hardly an acre of European-owned cocoagarden in the territories under the administration of this Government — this remarkable achievement of a unique position as a producer of one of the world’s great staples assumes, in my opinion, a special value and significance.

The wealth enjoyed by British West Africans during the last decade has been lavishly spent by parents upon the education of their sons and daughters, with the result that each Dependency possesses some hundreds of men of cpiite exceptional education and ability. How to satisfy the legitimate political and professional aspirations of these Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh sons of Africa is one of the most difficult problems in the territories of West Africa, whose governments are still autocracies. These men already control the legal and medical professions, own and direct the newspapers, and dominate the activity of the mass of the people in all the centres of local government.

In the interior regions, Britain has adopted the method known as indirect rule, namely, that of governing through the chiefs. In none of these West African territories have the natives yet received the franchise; but a beginning is about to be made in three of the principal towns of Nigeria. British West Africa is contented, first, because the natives own the land; secondly, because there is very little race prejudice; and finally, because considerable effort has been made to meet the demands of the ever-increasing ranks of educated Negroes.

II

British South Africa is, in almost every respect, a violent contrast. The total Negro and Negroid population in Africa, south of the Zambesi River is, approximately, 7,000,000, of whom some 500,000 are half-castes (BritishNegro, and Dutch-Negro). In the four provinces of the Union territories — Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free State and the Transvaal —race prejudice is much more pronounced than in the adjacent Protectorates of Basutoland, Swaziland, Bechuanaland, and the two Rhodesias (North and South). These territories constitute for Great Britain a problem of such magnitude and grave potential danger that a brief outline of their history and status is essential to any clear grasp of the problem.

From the discovery of the Cape by Diaz, in 1487, until 1795, the territories were dominated by the Dutch. British influence commenced in 1806; the Great South African War closed in 1902; and in 1909 the Union territories, as they are called, became a self-governing Dominion, under the CampbellBannerman Act.

The ‘color bar’ is the major problem of South Africa, and it excites bitterness in three main directions, either of which must, sooner or later, bring South African statesmen to the very position which confronted Abraham Lincoln, when he made his famous speech in June, 1858. South Africa cannot secure permanent peace while she pursues a racial, economic, and political policy, half-slave and halffree. The three racial directions along which South Africa is attempting to find either salvation, or a via media are: (a) Land; (b) Industrial Occupations; (c) Franchise.

The supreme issue of life to the indigenous African Negro is his land; franchise, cattle, industry, labor, and polygamy each involves its difficulties; but, relatively, land overtops each and all of them. Take from the African his political or personal freedom, take his cattle, or even his wife and children, and he will tolerate the injustice; but touch his land, and he will stake all in battle, no matter what the forces arrayed against him. Take the land, back the robbery with rifles, machine guns, and ‘heavies,’ and the African will still face the ‘bloody music’ with primitive spear and bow and arrow. The terrible odds make the struggle hopeless; but, as the African has said so many times in history, ‘Take my land, and you take my life’; therefore, he argues, as well lose life by bullet or cannon-shell as by being robbed of land.

The European conception of the commercial ownership of land is totally alien 1o primitive native thought; a century ago, almost any of the tribes in Africa would have looked upon the sale of tribal lands as an act of the most revolting kind. Land, to the primitive African, is one of three component parts of African social and economic life — sun, water, land, represent to the native mind, not three elements, but a single element, the supreme object of which is the provision of human sustenance. This machinery is so interdependent, that the primitive African would be as horrified at the alienation and sale of land as of water or sun. It thus follows that the ownership of land is nowhere vested in the individual, but in the whole race inhabitating a particular area, while every member of the tribe possesses as much right to the usage of adequate land as he does to the usage of an adequate share of the warmth of the sun, or to a draught of water from the local spring.

It may be assumed that such tribal ownership precludes immigrant settlers, but it does nothing of the kind. It precludes monopoly, it shuts out self-interest, it is true; but there are adequate means by which any man, no matter of what race, creed, or color, may obtain secure title to occupancy-right of adequate land. The immigrant entering tribal areas would be confronted, not with a question as to what land he requires and at what price, but with the initial question, whether or not he is a fit and proper person to become part of the tribal order. If it is decided that the immigrant is a suitable person to enter the community, the allotment of land follows as naturally as the gift of a wife; for the African believes it to be the first duty of man to multiply and replenish the earth.

Europe and America knew General Botha as a great military leader; South Africa knew him as a great statesman. When General Botha first came to power as the Prime Minister of South Africa, he found land-tenure in the four provinces of the Union in wellnigh hopeless confusion — whites living on native land; natives living on the land of white men, upon every conceivable tenure, just and unjust; natives owning land, and occupying land upon bad tenure, and no tenure at all; native ownership and native occupancy almost everywhere undefined and irregular.

General Botha decided upon a policy of disentangling Negro and white tenures; he marked off large areas on the map, and labeled them black or white according to the density of population. These areas form a sort of irregular checker-board; but there are 40,000,000 acres of black squares, — that is, land which may be occupied only by Negroes, — and 260,000,000 acres of white, or land which may never be leased or sold to Negroes.

The total population of the four provinces within the Union was approximately: —

(latest available figures) To these must be added the following populations of the Protectorates under the direct control of the British Government.

Taken together, the total South African population under British rule — and allowing for normal increase since 1911 — must, be not less than one and a half million whites, and seven million colored people.

Within the white areas of the Union

Cape Colony, Transvaal, Orange Free State, Natal—no colored man may purchase or lease land; within the black areas, no white man may either purchase or lease land; but, in both cases, exceptions may be made by the competent authority. The separation of these areas began in 1916, and only the most optimistic persons anticipate that the process of removing ‘interlopers’ will be completed before 2016! The system is not ‘segregation,’ because no additional impediments are put in the way of social, industrial, or commercial contact between the races. This land policy has caused the most intense bitterness, and no little hardship among the Negro races, and has estranged them from the Government more than anything else within the last fifty years; but this bitter feeling is directed against the Government, while the bitterness engendered by the second main source of trouble is directed against the white trade-unions.

III

The actual cause of the recent ‘Rebellion’ in South Africa was the industrial color bar, and it came very near to landing South Africa in civil war. It is no use burying our heads in the sand and assuming that the struggle is ended; far from it; for it has only just begun, and it must go on until South Africa, has become wholly slave or wholly free — and the love of gold is the root of all the evil.

Gold, the ‘scarlet woman’ of the modern financial world, has ruined more men, while at the same time it has made more fortunes for a few individuals, than any other African commodity. The love of gold has been the root of almost every evil thing in Africa; seeking the kinds wherein gold was secreted has caused the shedding of rivers of blood; while the gaunt spectres of white men in the phthisis hospitals of ‘ Jo’burg’ tell to-day their own horrible story of the price those must pay who pit, blast, and mine, a mile below the earth’s surface, for the precious yellow ore.

To-day the three principal gold-mining areas of Africa are (a) the Gold Coast, with an annual output of about £1,500,000; (b) Southern Rhodesia, with an output of, approximately, £2,500,000 per annum; and (c) the main source of supply, namely, that twenty-eight, miles of reef known as the Rand. The Witwatersrand, or ‘head of the white waters,’is banket, or a conglomerate of pebbles and quartz matrix, and a small percentage of pyrites. The ancient gold-miners of the Zambesi seldom went deeper than 80 to 150 feet for the gold for Solomon’s Temple; but present-day miners on the Rand are winning gold at a vertical depth of nearly 5000 feet. The rocktemperature increases appreciably according to depth, and thereby produces an increase of humidity. The amount of air-moisture in these deep-level mines is strikingly demonstrated by the fact that the ventilating fan in the ‘Village Deep’ mine actually removes, in the process of ventilation, 40,000 gallons of water per day!

The mines cannot go much deeper than 5000 feet; and many of them are so nearly worked out that they must soon cease to be a paying proposition. Competent observers declare, and in many cases actually hope, that ten years will see the Rand completely worked out, and that, within twenty years, Johannesburg will fulfill prophecy and be in ruins, buried beneath sand-dumps and prairie grass. But this doleful prophecy should not be taken too literally; for other industries may quite conceivably spring up in this magnificent, if wicked, city at the head of the white waters.

Johannesburg has been a generous giver of gold; for since she started in 1884, with a gold output of only £10,000, civilization has received from beneath her surface over £600,000,000 sterling. In the first decade, 1884-94, the output rose from £10,000 to £7,667,000; from 1894 to 1904, £7,667,000 to £16,028,000; from 1904 to 1914, £16,028,000 to £35,656,000 per annum. For the last five years, the figures have shown only a slight increase, the total output varying from thirty-six million to thirty-nine millions sterling per annum.

It is said that the total output of gold from the South African mines has never yet reached the amount of capital sunk in winning it; this seems quite possible, when it is remembered that,

following the gold-boom flotation, only some twenty out of five hundred registered companies were able to pay their way. Gold-winning is the backbone of the economic situation in South Africa. If the whole of the gold-bearing regions are included, the total number of laborers employed is about 15,000 white men, and 250,000 Negroes; but it is officially estimated that those who depend directly and indirectly upon goldwinning exceed 250,000 whites, and 1,000,000 Negroes.

The Negro worker is paid about £30 per annum, with board and lodging; the white worker receives from £400 per annum up; but the white laborunions will not allow the Negro workers to engage in any skilled or semiskilled tasks, of which there are, all told, some fifteen to twenty from which the native is barred by color (the same ‘bar’ is applied to half-castes). The Negro worker, therefore, is restricted to the position of a hewer of wood and drawer of water. For nearly thirty years the Negro workers have acquiesced in this situation; but with the rapid advance of education has come a sense of power, and a knowledge that, given adequate organization, the Negro can break the fetters fastened upon him by white labor. The attempt of the Negro to rise in the industrial scale has recently received powerful stimulus from a quite unexpected quarter, namely, the effect of the war on the gold market, which means that, unless the color bar is abolished, a large number of the gold mines will be ruined.

The normal price of gold is about 85 shillings per ounce; and at that price, most of the South African mines were able to produce gold at a profit prior to 1914. During the war Messrs. Rothschild entered into an agreement, whereby they were able to operate a kind of monopoly, and thereby to obtain a substantial premium on the sale of gold ore—at one time as much as twenty shillings per ounce. But during the years 1914-19, the cost of production rose rapidly, and was only met by the gold premium. The rise in cost is shown in the following figures of milled rock:—

But this was not all; for, as costs rose, production per man rapidly declined. In 1920 the price of gold began to drop; but costs remained, and still remain, at a level which threatens the gold industry all along the reef. It must be borne in mind that geological formations frequently compel profit-making mines to ‘carry on their backs’ neighboring mines which would otherwise be closed down; to stop the working of one mine might lead to the flooding of others.

What then is the bearing of the color bar on this economic situation? The white labor unions rigidly reserve to themselves all the skilled tasks; but, in addition to this, they are also adamant on an eight-hour day. The skilled miners must descend the mines first, to see that everything is in order; this operation takes one hour. At the close of the day, the skilled workers mustremain below to see that everything (machinery, explosives, and so forth) is left in order; this takes another hour. This six-hour working day means, in practice, that the great mass of unskilled laborers (250,000 men) can work only within a circumference which, statistics show, averages twenty-five and one half hours a week for the Negro workers.

These are the admitted facts; government, mine-owners, and Negro laborers are demanding that the color bar shall go, and that the Negro workers shall be allowed to rise in the industrial scale according to proved capacity. The white unions admit the fact that, owing to the cost of production, gold cannot be sold at a profit; but they demand a government subsidy to assist the industry; upon no consideration whatever will they consent to the abolition of the color bar; better the ruin of the mines, they say, than that the Negro should be allowed to rise to the industrial level of the white man.

It was the foregoing situation which produced the revolution of March last. The mines were confronted with the refusal of General Smuts to consider a subsidy, and with the refusal of the white unions to consider any change in their hours of labor, or the modification of the color bar. The progressive fall in the price of gold forced the mine-owners to demand a modification of the bar, in order that, what they called unskilled work (but what the unions called skilled tasks) should be done by natives. The response was electric! The white unions raised the cry of blackleg labor, and took as their slogan ‘A White South Africa’; the Dutch white population was stirred throughout South Africa, and there is evidence that the ‘Nationalist’ Dutch of the Orange Free State had entered into some kind of agreement with the white revolutionaries. The extent to which passion against the Negro was roused is evidenced by the speeches of two Dutch clergymen.

The Reverend Mr. Oosthuizen, addressing an audience of two thousand at Brakpan said that their forefathers had fought for a white South Africa, but on the 15th of December, the Chamber of Mines had declared there should be a Black South Africa.

The Reverend Mr. Hattingh, speaking in the Town Hall, Johannesburg, said: —

The Government is prepared to do only what the Chamber of Mines told them. In order to fill their pockets, the Chamber of Mines are murdering the workers; if the color bar is abolished, the souls as well as the bodies of the workers will be murdered, and the authority of the white race in South Africa come to an end.

The revolutionary strike began on March 1. The white mine-workers organized themselves into military commandoes, and at once attacked the City Deep Mines. On March 3 they blew up houses, and shot police; three days later, they began shooting inoffensive natives, blowing up railways and bridges, and cutting off water and light; and by March 10 had done an enormous amount of damage. The total casualties of the police and government forces was 291, and of the revolutionaries 396; but this figure included many perfectly innocent civilians, shot either by accident, or in cold blood.

The leaders of the rising made no secret of their position; they gloried in the name of revolutionaries; they advocated the color bar for the Negro, and liberty for the white labor; they preached violence and bloodshed; they invited their followers to assassinate Smuts and shoot government officials and police; they boldly proclaimed their adhesion to the Third International, and acknowledged Lenin and Karl Marx as their teachers. There can be no question that, had the revolution, as it was called, succeeded, a racial conflict would have developed involving the whole of South Africa in civil war!

It is too early yet to say what the results will be of this first conflict arising from the color bar. One thing only is clear, namely, that the root cause of the trouble remains; nothing has been settled, and South Africa, in the industrial sphere, is still ‘halfslave and half-free.’ This is the greatest and, potentially, the most dangerous of Britain’s Negro problems!

IV

To the problems of land, and the color bar in industry, South Africa adds a third, namely, Franchise. The natives of the Transvaal and Natal are not one whit behind those of Cape Colony in education, while they are far in advance of the Matabele and Mashona natives of Rhodesia; yet the 2,000,000 colored people of the Cape, and the 1,000,000 natives of South Rhodesia possess the franchise upon a simple qualification of elementary writing and spelling, and the possession of property to the value of $500, or an income of $200 to $500 per annum!

This situation leads to grotesque complications. All along the boundary lines where villages are bisected, half the population is enfranchised and the other half is denied the vote; and many stories are told of politicians wooing the wrong half of native villages. In South Rhodesia only some fifty Negroes have yet qualified for the vote; whereas it is estimated that the colored vote in Cape Colony could control no less than ten seats; the fact that only one member is believed to be returned to the South African Parliament by the colored votes demonstrates that, for the present at any rate, the South African Negro is far more interested in the struggle for his land rights and the abolition of the color bar in industry than he is in the franchise.

V

It is almost correct to say that Great Britain has no serious Negro problem in the East African territories; but this is only because the natives of these territories are far less advanced than those either in South Africa or West Africa. The natives in East Africa are where those of South Africa were something like a century ago; that is to say, the whites are ‘getting a grip’ on the land whenever they can, although the governments are alert and are protecting the Negroes by earmarking huge reserves for their exclusive occupation. The total areas and population in East Africa under British control are as follows: —

Britain also holds the mandate for the larger part of the mandated area of the late German Protectorate, nowknown as the Tanganyika Territory, which covers an area of nearly 300,000 square miles, occupied by a population of 4,000,000. Belgium holds the mandate for the relatively small territories of Ruanda and Urundi: and these are so densely populated (which is the thing that matters most in African territory) that there are almost as many people in these little sultanates as in the huge area allotted under mandate to Great Britain, namely, 3,500,000.

Thus, Great Britain controls, next to France, the largest area of African territory; and the nursery rhyme of the ‘Old Woman Who lived in a Shoe’ is absolutely applicable to her problems: for, not only has she so many Negro children, but their needs are so various, and their clamor so insistent, that Mother Britain would very much like to ‘Whip them all soundly and send them to bed ’!

The struggle over the color bar in South Africa is unique because it alone is dangerous; for, unless solved, it must lead to civil war. The problem of land settlement, which is the next most urgent of Britain’s Negro problems, is being worked out along two main lines. In those areas where white men can live only temporarily, the aim is to keep as much land as possible under the control of the native, and as little as possible under that of the whites. In those areas where white domestic life is possible, — that is, where the whites can colonize an area, — the policy is that of earmarking large sections of the land for exclusive occupation by the natives, and at the same time placing white colonists on the healthier highlands.

But newer problems are beginning to clamor for solution, and of these, alcohol-franchise and self-government are two which demand attention with everincreasing insistence. It is easy for European and American statesmen to forgather at Brussels and St.-Germain, and pass treaties and conventions for limiting the consumption of strong drink by the Negro; but how to do it in practice defies the wit of man. France and Portugal will on no account refrain from sending in their light wines and brandies; the British trader and official, even if willing to shut out the cheap brands of whisky, gin, and rum which the native drinks, will not deny himself the daily nips of ‘Johnnie Walker’ — and the native can then ‘teef ’em.’ Again, the laws of the colonies may deny the sale of alcohol to ‘natives,’ which at once presents the conundrum, ‘What is a native.’ One colony has no less than fourteen legal definitions of a native, and still these fourteen fail to include the whole Negro population.

Finally, when all schemes of statesmen in Europe are perfected; when all the ‘ barbed-wire entanglements and fences’ have been erected by local governments; when the merchant and trader has been chastened by huge fines, there still remains that wily Negro ‘in the bush,’ with his ingenious little pot still pouring out the liquid with which to petrify the liver of his fellow Negro; and always growing, always spreading, are those millions of palm trees which pour forth their foaming liquid, which, by a suitable process and the aid of a tropical sun, will turn palm-wine into a kind of hellfire drink! Those who want to keep the African from drinking something other than his disease-infected waters have a task that would break the heart, of the most optimistic pussyfoot in the universe !

VI

The major Negro problem, after all, is that of franchise and self-government. Great Britain prides herself, and not without reason, over the Basutoland experiment. Basutoland is a tiny little state, — the Switzerland of South Africa, — measuring only 10,000 square miles, and occupied by 400,000 of quite the most virile and advanced natives south of the Equator. This little state rests under the shadow of the Drakensburg range of mountains, and its borders rest on Cape Colony, Natal, and the Orange Free State. The Basutos owe their unique position to their great, ruler, the late King Moshesh, easily the greatest Negro statesman that South Africa has produced. Basutoland was annexed by Britain at the request of Moshesh, and stands alone in the fact that it was later disannexed, and is now governed by a native Parliament, or Pitso, guided by English advisers.

The Basutoland government levies its own taxes, and, in fact, performs all the functions of a modern administration. White men are permitted to visit Basutoland, and, in some cases, to reside within the territory; but none may own land. The measure of success attending this experiment may be adduced from three facts, each of a totally different order from the others: — (a) the population has increased within one hundred years from 40,000 to 400,000, and at least 50,000 Basutos go out every year to fill various positions in different, parts of South Africa (of course, there is also an inward movement); (b) the Basutos show their interest in education by taxing their people for educational purposes more heavily than any other province in South Africa, as the following figures demonstrate: Cape Colony spends $3.50 per capita, Natal nearly $4, the Transvaal $4.50, Orange Free State $2, Basutoland $5; (c) Basutoland, alone among African governments, not only has no national debt, but has lent her budget surpluses to every other government in South Africa. The political future of Basutoland has yet to be decided; her people are resolutely set against entering the Union of South Africa, and Great Britain is as resolutely determined not to annex the country. Is this little self-governing country destined to fill a niche in some future league of nations?

The mandated areas present an entirely new set of problems. These territories are vested in no one power, but in a group of powers, including, of course, the United States. For three years the problem of the status of the natives has been under discussion, and it seems, at last, to be decided that they are citizens of no country at all, but the ‘protected wards’ of the mandatory powers.

A curious little dilemma has now been disclosed in the late German Southwest Protectorate, where a wellestablished little republic is claiming the right to ‘contract out’ of the mandatory system. The existence of this republic and its romantic history were unknown to South Africa until quite recently, and were brought to light only by a chance visit made by Senator Schreiner and some twenty members of the South African Parliament. This Republic of Rehoboth, as it is called, was, apparently, founded about fifty years ago by a company of bastard, or half-caste, people, who determined to trek away from South Africa, and put some hundreds of miles of desert land between themselves and their white oppressors. The Bastards appear to have been Christians, and began their trek in small companies, in order to avoid difficulty over the water-holes in the desert. At one part of the journey they settled down for a whole year, in order to grow sufficient mealies to maintain supplies for the second half of the journey.

In due course, the entire community reached, and settled down in, a fertile district, which they called Rehoboth, presumably because they had reached a land of ‘wide spaces.’ Here they multiplied, grew prosperous, and founded a modern city and state, with its own Parliament and statute-book. In 1885, the white races again got into touch with them; and this time it was Germany, and the redoubtable William Hohenzollern. The Kaiser was quite fair to the Bastards; he recognized by treaty their national existence; he recognized their Parliament and the laws passed by the Republic; and, finally, he accepted their claim to continue the British nationality they had adopted; and all went well until the outbreak of the Great War.

In 1914, the total adult population was about 5000 souls; the president of the Republic was also the commanderin-chief. In August, 1914, the President, Van Wyk, informed Germany that he and his burghers would remain neutral — a position accepted by both sides; but in April, 1915, Colonel Francke demanded that the Rehoboth Parliament should assume the care of British prisoners. This demand was stoutly resisted by Rehoboth, and in the end, an ultimatum, which led to war, was sent to President Van Wyk.

The first German attack was made on April 18, 1915, and Captain Van Wyk retreated with his force to a position six miles from Rehoboth, where he received a formal declaration of war. This was followed by an action, in which Van Wyk suffered some loss; and he withdrew his burgher force farther into the mountain region, pending the calling-up of every available man. In this retreat, the Rehoboth burghers suffered considerable loss, their villages were burned, their cattle raided, and many of their women, children, and sick were carried away. They also lost nearly £4,000 worth of span oxen, and over 4,000 head of stock; while at Tubiras, a supply column was ambushed, and lost, over forty wagons, and a number of women and children. By this time Van Wyk had mobilized his 2000 fighting men. They struggled on for a time against a better-armed force, and, in fact, inflicted a heavy defeat upon the Germans at a place called koenorp, capturing a large part of their supplies and equipment.

Now occurred two of the most dramatic incidents in the whole story, showing how sheer brutality involved the Germans in complete defeat. After the reverse at Koenorp, the German troops were reinforced by 500 men with maxims and field guns, which apparently involved the weakening of the defense of Gibeon, a strategic town in German Southwest. Captain Van Wyk at once withdrew his entire force to a strong mountain position, and at the same time hid the women and children of his men in caves. The German command now made a fatal error: instead of at once wiping their opponents out of existence, they delayed attack for one day, in order to vent their anger upon the valiant Rehoboth captain by despatching a large part of their force to destroy his farm. This they did, killing his three children, — two boys and a girl, — his aunt of seventy, and an insane brother. Two boys, of sixteen and four years, the latter in his mother’s arms, were also killed, and then such property as could not be carried off they burned.

Having spent a day in this orgy, they returned and made the final attack. The battle began at seven o’clock in the morning, and Van Wyk’s little band was soon reduced by thirty-three. Ammunition was running short, and every man was ordered to fire only when absolutely necessary. Toward nightfall, almost the last cartridge had been spent, and the German troops were raining shot and shell upon the defenders and their stronghold.

Darkness stopped the battle, and when morning dawned, President Van Wyk, surrounded by the members of his Volksraad, saw nothing before them but annihilation. These courageous men saw that the end was not far off, and that the German commander, in a few hours, could easily overwhelm them. But those precious hours, wasted the day before in an orgy of arson and murder, were gone beyond recall; while, unknown to the German commander at the time, and unknown, of course, to the beleaguered Van Wyk and his faithful followers, unknown, indeed, to either of the human agents, Nemesis, like a whirlwind, was coming from the East. With sunrise, a fatal message reached the German command: General Mackenzie, with mounted troops and horse artillery, was galloping hard across the veldt for Gibeon. Too late now to destroy the people of Rehoboth, too late even to return and defend Gibeon; having barely time to escape with their lives, the German force, baulked of the prey that they had in the hollow of their hands, now lost no time in retreat, lest they should be cut off and surrounded by General Mackenzie. The beleaguered burghers of Rehoboth, saved in the nick of time from annihilation, returned to bury their dead, and rebuild their farms.

This Republic of Rehoboth is now claiming the right to come into direct contact with the League of Nations, either as a self-governing state, or under Great Britain; like Basutoland, the burghers of Rehoboth prefer any solution other than that of coming again under the control of what is now the Union of South Africa.

The problems of the Negro and Negroid races of British Africa awaiting solution will tax British statecraft to the uttermost. The United States of America has a pretty big task, with 15,000,000 Negroes; but Great Britain has responsibility for almost as many as she has white subjects in the British Isles. A generation ago, Negro problems could wait years for a solution; to-day, time presses if danger in half a dozen directions is to be averted.