Chapter 7

My own observations, corroborated by the opinions of many other observers, leads me to believe that the fecundity of the coloured people is neither greater nor less than that of other people--white, black or yellow--whose birthrate is not artificially restricted, and that their general physical constitution, when not undermined by disease or stunted by underfeeding, is as strong as that of any other human variety. The great naturalist, Wallace, has insisted that some degree of difference favours fertility, but that a little more tends to infertility, and by applying this hypothesis to the facts as I have observed them I am led to believe that there is no biological difference between the Bantu and the European of a degree sufficient to produce any difference, one way or the other, in the fertility of the offspring of the two races, but proper statistics, continued over several generations, will, of course, be required to prove or disprove this conclusion.

The gravest, and, as I think, the most unjust of the many charges brought against these people by an unthinking public, is that the half-caste, wherever he is found, partakes of all the vices but of none of the virtues of his parents. When we remember that in the towns of South Africa the coloured people of necessity form the class that in the nature of things is peculiarly exposed to the temptations of prostitution and crime, then it becomes a matter for wonder that these people are as good and as law-abiding as indeed they are. People who know South Africa will admit that the coloured girl is from childhood exposed to the temptation of loose-living far more than either the Native girl in the kraal or the European girl in her home, and that the coloured boys and youths, by reason of the lack of the right kind of home-influence, which is the result of the unfavourable position in life of the bulk of their parents, naturally gravitate towards the levels where it becomes difficult to avoid crime. But despite all these adverse conditions that press so heavily against them the coloured people of South Africa, taken as a whole, stand justified of the calumnies uttered against them. The coloured people as a whole are not behind the whites in anything except in the lack of opportunity for education and self-improvement, a lack caused not by themselves, but by their inimical surroundings.

That many of the coloured people are immoral and shiftless need not be denied; the same may be said about the "poor whites," who as a class perplex well-meaning legislators, but neither of these proved accusations give reason for thinking that either of these classes is inherently inferior to their more favourably-placed fellow-beings. We must always remember the tremendous handicap of being reared in the depressing surroundings of sloth and squalor. I have seen hundreds of poor whites--as white as any blond German could wish to be--who seemed utterly unfit for the complexities of civilised life, but I have also seen many of the children of these people who, after being removed from their home surroundings, have risen to positions of usefulness and trust, in which they have earned reputations for integrity and capacity. The trenchant saying of a British working-man is in point, "Treat a man like a dog and he will behave like a dog," and the corollary is equally true, that if you treat a man as a man he will, as a rule, rise and quit himself like a man.

The familiar cry that once white blood is diluted with black it is "all up" with our civilisation is not convincing when we remember that the ground-work of this civilisation was built up by races that were not "pure white"; that the white civilisation during the dark ages sank to a very low level through no dilution of African blood, and that it was a mixed race, the Moors, who brought back into Europe the lost principles of Aristotelian science on which the crumbling structure of European culture was rebuilt. To believe that the people of Asia and of Africa may be capable of attaining to Western civilisation, but that the offspring produced by the crossing of these races with whites will not have the necessary capacity therefor is to me impossible. So far from being deterrent to mental growth it would seem that an infusion of African blood in the European serves rather to increase mental capacity; at any rate, those who know South Africa well will not deny that an unmistakable tincture of African blood in a white family is often associated with marked intellectual ability. Against this concession it has indeed been alleged that, while it must be admitted that a small admixture of black blood in a white race enriches it, a small admixture of white blood in a black race degrades it, but this fanciful notion has not been supported by scientific data. The truth of the matter is that as the blacks are the underdogs, the half-breed becomes a racial and social bastard, as indeed he is openly named in South Africa, a man condemned before he is tried, handicapped from birth in a way that would drag down and keep under most of those who shout loudest about their racial superiority. It is his condition and not his nature that keeps the coloured man underneath.

To the man who in face of the facts of history and of to-day believes that all we have of civilisation we owe to the Teutonic or to the Nordic type of man, and that nothing good can ever come out of coloured Nazareths, the possibility of the whites in South Africa becoming browned by the selective agency of tropical light or by an infusion of African blood, no doubt, seems an evil to be prevented at any cost, but those who, like myself, have seen coloured women working in their homes as thriftily and self-sacrificingly as the best of our own women, and coloured men labouring steadily against heavy odds to improve their condition, have become convinced that the coloured people of South Africa suffer under no inherent disabilities when compared with the whites, and for this reason we cannot join in the general wail over a predicted evil which we regard as exaggerated in itself and not, moreover, likely to happen. I would not, however, be taken to advocate the inter-breeding of white and black. Those who have witnessed the misery and suffering which the coloured people have to endure for being coloured will welcome any fair means of preventing miscegenation in South Africa. Proscriptive legislation has been advocated by both the detractors and the defenders of the half-breed, as a means of preventing what both schools, for their different reasons, regard as wrong and undesirable, but I cannot agree that it can ever be right or expedient to penalise and make criminal a natural act which under existing conditions is in many places unavoidable.

There can be no doubt that the evil of miscegenation in South Africa has been greatly exaggerated, both in respect of its nature and its extent, but, nevertheless, so long as the racial prejudice of the white man remains as strong as it is to-day--and there is nothing to show that it is likely to decrease in the future--so long will it be the duty of all good citizens to discourage by persuasion and precept the production of children for whom the ruling race has no love and little pity. Even those among the whites who, in a spirit of good will and tolerance urge that the coloured people should receive preferential treatment because of the white blood which is in them, cannot escape having their point of view warped by their racial prepossession, for, surely, it is not because of a man's class or colour that he is treated as a man to-day but because of his being a civilised member of a civilised community. Nevertheless, the day when civilisation shall be the sole qualification for full membership of the civilised community of South Africa is not yet.

I say, therefore, in answer to the question whether, without the full fraternity which seems impossible here, the white and the black races may not live together in South Africa in political liberty and equality, that the trend of events leads to the belief that the established pride of race of the whites, and the growing pride of race among the Natives will conduce to voluntary separation wherever this is possible, and that in this way the coming generations will contrive to live territorially separate under a common governance, founded upon political equality and liberty.

CONCLUSION.

The evidence before us leads inevitably to the conclusion that there is nothing in the mental constitution, or in the moral nature of the South African Native, to warrant his relegation to a place of inferiority in the land of his birth, but the same evidence also leads to the conclusion that the racial antipathy which prevails to-day will remain unaffected by this admission, seeing that this racial animosity is caused not by alleged mental disparity but by unalterable physical difference between the two races.

It is important that this distinction be grasped for it goes to the root of the matter. It is the marked physical dissimilarity of the black man that rouses the fear and jealousy of the white man, and not any inherent mental inferiority in him. And we must take human nature as we find it, inscrutable and immutable as it is; wherefore we must reckon with, and not hastily condemn, the imponderable purpose of a fundamental instinct which is older than speech and deeper than thought, so that, although we admit that this racial antipathy is not justified by logical reasoning, we may nevertheless recognise it as a feeling grounded in man's inner nature--in his heart, so to speak--hardening it against other men whom he feels he cannot receive and entreat as brothers; in other words, we may say that this feeling is not the result of ratiocination but of forces that are deeper and more elemental than reason; that it is a hardening of heart rather than a mental conviction, in which sense we may apply the words of Pascal "Le caeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas."

Now if I am right in thinking that this racial feeling is engendered instinctively by physical dissimilarity only then we may not expect it to be removed or even lessened by the increased and general advancement of the Natives, for although we may hope that the whites will gradually come to recognise the abstract justice of the civilised Natives' claim to full racial equality we must, at the same time, remember that the increasing competition of the black man in every walk of life is bound to bring into play and accentuate the natural race prejudice of the white man whereby the tolerance and good feeling that might otherwise result from a growing recognition of the civilised Natives' mental and moral worth will be more than negatived. The present state of affairs in the Southern States of America is a warning against easy optimism in this respect. We must expect clashing and growing ill-will rather than social serenity to be the outcome of a continued policy of drift.

To condemn the wrong of repression would to-day be like preaching to the converted. Most people now admit that the Africans are entitled, no less than the Europeans, to develop themselves as far and as fully as they can, but the question remains how they can be allowed to do so without intensifying present antipathy on both sides. Parallelism is a word that has been used a great deal of late to signify an attitude of mind, as I take it, rather than a definite policy or plan of action, through which it is hoped that separate scope for civilised activity and development may be given to the Natives on lines parallel to those along which the whites pursue their separate course, but without any forced territorial separation of the two people. Metaphor of this kind is undoubtedly useful to the political speaker in that it enables him to be apt without being exact, and thereby frees him from the possibility of being pinned down to a stated position, but in serious discussion exactness rather than aptness is desired, and to the thinking man the figure of speech, by which the notion of two lines running always parallel without meeting is applied to the course of development of two races living together in one country, is not convincing.

This idea of parallelism is based on the presumption that the ruling race can so rule itself that by the mere exercise of its collective will-power it can refuse always to mix socially with the growing numbers of civilised Natives living and working in the same localities, and thereby--in a manner not yet explained--avoid always the clashing and ill-will that seems inseparable from the close contact of two dissimilar races competing against one another in one country. The advice offered from afar is that the whites should allow the Natives equal opportunities with themselves in all the ways of civilised activity, but--should not invite them home to dinner. Being based on an unwarranted presumption parallelism here begs the question, for it is precisely the ability of the ruling race to follow this counsel of perfection that is in doubt. It is easy to urge that the Europeans must maintain their position in South Africa as "a benevolent aristocracy of ability," but we want to know how this can be done. A recent contributor to the general question of colour has stated that the true conception of the inter-relation of white and black races should be "complete uniformity in ideals, absolute equality in the paths of knowledge and culture, equal opportunity for those who strive, equal admiration for those who achieve; in matters social and racial a separate path, each pursuing his own inherited traditions, preserving his own race-purity and race-pride; equality in things spiritual; agreed divergence in the physical and material."[25] But, again, we want to know how this abstract conception is to be put into actual practice in this world of things as they are.

I have said that the Natives do not hanker after intimate social intimacy with the whites, but this does not mean that the civilised black man who has risen to the economic and educational level of the European remains indifferent whenever his claim to ordinary social recognition is denied or ignored. He would not, indeed, be human if he did not feel hurt whenever he is slighted and treated with contempt by people from whom he differs only in his physical appearance and colour. In one of his essays, dealing with Native matters, Professor Jabavu, a Native, describes how "high" feeling arose among the Native teachers and boys in a certain training institution in South Africa at which he had been invited to lecture because he was not allowed to see the inside of the European principal's house, despite the fact that he had ten years of English university life behind him.[26] Such feeling is only natural and must tend always to create ill-will, and, knowing how strong is the convention of the whites against social recognition of the educated Native, we must expect increased bitterness in the future, rather than growing good-will.

The thinking white man, who would fain be just to every one, is perplexed by two conflicting emotions. He feels that the clean-living, law-abiding, educated Native is a man not inferior to himself whom he therefore ought to recognise as a fellow-citizen, but whenever he sees this fellow-citizen aspiring or laying claim to the social recognition that involves contact with white women he is filled instantly with wrath which he cannot justify to himself and yet cannot suppress. It is easy to see that where instead of common courtesy and mutual recognition from one another of two sections of a community, constant irritation and ill-will result, there the existence of the whole is threatened with disaster. Under such conditions we must expect, not parallel progress, but strife and enmity; not peace, but a sword.

The Jews may be cited to show how a separate and peculiar people may be able to live together with other races without either clashing with or being assimilated by these but we must remember that the ethnic difference between the Jews and Europeans are too slight to sustain serious and lasting race-antipathy. Parallelism, when applied to the Native problem of South Africa, is clearly nothing more than the old, plan-less drift continued in the pious hope that human nature will sooner or later change into something better than what it is to-day. But human nature will not change. We must never leave passion out of account. If we recognise love we must recognise hate also as a moving force of mankind. Neither must we overlook vanity and arrogance. The white man, being human, will not cease to be vain and ambitious, he will not cease to feel the hatred that comes from the fear of losing possession of his mates, and possession is the natural man's definition of love. Where there is a sense of possession there will also be jealousy and hate, and it will only be by securing the white man in his sense of racial integrity that peace and good-will can be made to last.

Territorial separation of the home-life of the two races is the only way by which parallel development can take place. Some of the Native leaders who have opposed this policy have done so in the belief that their people might eventually be able to prove and enforce their claim to full racial equality, but they have not realised that this claim will be denied always on physical grounds, and not on considerations of moral worth. These leaders mean well but they do not see well. Smarting under the pain of their treatment they do not perceive that the real issue is one of unalterable physical disparity.

The hardships and disabilities under which the educated Native suffers in the Northern Provinces of the Union and in Rhodesia are patent and serious. It is hard that a civilised man may not travel in his own country without a "certificate"; it is hard that he must do only rough or menial, but always ill-paid, work when he is capable of doing skilled and well-paid labour; it is hard that when he is allowed to do skilled labour he cannot claim the wages of a skilled labourer; it is hard to be denied always the privileges of a civilised existence for which he has proved himself fit and worthy; it is hard to be treated always as an inferior and an alien in the land of his fathers; all this is hard, but--'tis the law, written and unwritten, made and enforced by the dominant race, and there is no reason to think it will be made less hard as the pressure of black competition increases.

But if good and ample land can be set aside in the various territories of spacious South Africa in which the Natives can live and move without let or hindrance; in which they can do what work they like for themselves and for their own people; in which they can engage, according to their individual desires, in all kinds of trades and commerce without the prohibition of the white man's colour-bar; in which they can earn the wages that are governed by the laws of supply and demand only; in which they can build up after their own fashion courts of law and political councils for themselves; in which, _in fine_ they can live and work out their own salvation, unhurried and unworried by strange and impatient masters, then, surely, the Natives of South Africa will have gained a great gain, far greater than any they can ever hope to win by pitting their undeveloped strength against the organised resistance of the whites.

The policy of territorial separation, which is now part of the law of the Union of South Africa,[27] is the only policy that will make possible a home existence for the Natives in their own homeland, for we know that, however educated and however worthy the civilised Native may become, he cannot hope to find a home, or to feel at home, among the whites. Rightly or wrongly, the whites have banged, bolted and barred their doors against the blacks, and neither moral worth nor educational qualifications will serve to open them. But in their own areas the Natives will have their own homes and their own home-life, without which human existence is indeed miserable. Those among them who long for the privilege of private ownership will be able to acquire land in freehold in localities set aside therefor, while those who cling to the old ways will be allowed to continue as before under their old system of communal land tenure.

With freedom of movement and action under a minimum of European supervision and control the Natives will, in their own areas, have full opportunity and scope for the development of a home-civilisation of their own along lines similar to, if not identical with, those by which the Europeans follow their separate ways. It is a heroic plan, and it will demand great sacrifice from both peoples, but who can doubt that the end will be worth the effort? The Natives may in some places have to leave the land where their ancestors are buried, and the whites will, in many places, have to accept the price of expropriation for land and houses hallowed and made precious by effort and memories, but the great general gain at the end will undoubtedly be worth all that must be surrendered now. This policy is the only one that holds out hope of peace and happiness for both races. If the fears and objections that are being raised by a few Natives and by individual Europeans here and there are allowed to frustrate this, the only practical plan so far devised, the future generations of both white and black in South Africa will assuredly curse the day their fathers wavered and failed to make the only just and fair provision that could be made.

To those, who for religious reasons feel doubtful about the righteousness of a plan that denies to the Natives the privilege of social equality which is implied in the ideal of the brotherhood of man, I would quote the words of Paul who, when speaking at Athens of the separation of the sons of Adam, said that God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitations,"[28] for, whether we take this statement to be the inspired utterance of a holy apostle, or simply the reasoned opinion of an acute observer, we must admit that the words convey the experience of the ages that races which are physically dissimilar tend naturally, and therefore, rightly, to dwell apart within their respective racial boundaries.

Some people have professed to be afraid that the territorial separation of the two races will tend to consolidate the Natives, and thereby foster animosity towards the whites which may eventually lead to open war, but this fear seems to have no ground in reason, because it is not proposed, nor, indeed, would it be physically possible, to segregate the Natives by themselves in one great area. On the contrary, it is proposed to dispose of the Natives, as far as possible, according to present geographical and tribal conditions, in several and separate territories, so that race-consolidation of a kind inimical to the whites will naturally be less likely to occur where the Natives live as separate tribes, speaking their different languages, than where, as in the Southern States of America, the Negroes have English as a common medium for the expression of a common race-interest.