be less than 120,000, and this is the only part of South Africa where the density of the population and the stress and strain of life remind the traveler of England and the United States. This district, which twelve years ago was a solitary waste, high and bare, where a farm of three thousand acres could be bought for fifty pounds, has now become the focus of South African industry and finance, and the seat of a new community, whose struggles with the government of the republic have made Johannesburg (as we shall presently observe) the center of gravity in South African politics.

Though both coal and iron are abundant in the two British colonies and in the Transvaal, manufactures have not yet sprung up, even in the older parts of Cape Colony, nor is there any present sign of their development. It is cheaper to import from Europe such articles as the country needs; for white labor is dear, black labor is unskilled, and the poorer classes have not begun to demand a tariff to protect their local industries against the competition of other countries.

The mention of labor brings us to a question of the greatest interest, which touches the central problems of economics and politics in South Africa. Who will form the bulk of the laboring class in the future-the whites or the blacks? And how will the difference of color affect the relations of one part of the laboring class to the other, or of the laboring class generally to the other classes of the community?

The question of labor is largely a question of climate. Now the climate of South Africa is peculiar. It is hot-much hotter than the climate of southern Europe (except a few spots along the Mediterranean coast) or than that of Virginia, Kentucky, or Missouri; but it is not an exhausting climate, because the nights are nearly everywhere cool, and the air is dry. European races can thrive and multiply both in the British colonies and in the two republics. It is only on the flats of the east coast and in the valley of the Zambesi that the conditions of health become really unfavorable. Elsewhere the heat, even of a summer day, is not greater than the peoples of southern Europe-Portuguese, for instance, or Sicilians-could well support. And probably the races of northern Europe, such as the Dutch and the English, could, in most parts of the country, do out-of-door work without injury. Had South Africa, like California or New South Wales, been colonized solely by white men, South Africa, like those countries, would probably have had a white laboring

population. But unluckily South Africa was colonized in much earlier days, when the importation of negro slaves was deemed the easiest means of securing cheap and abundant labor. Slaves were first brought in 1658. Thereafter, until slavery was abolished by the British Parliament in 1834, all the hardest and humblest kinds of work were done by slaves. The white people lost the habit of performing manual labor, and acquired the habit of despising it. No one would do for himself what he could get a black man to do for him. New settlers from Europe fell into the ways of the country, which suited their disinclination to exert themselves under a burning sun. Thus, when at last the abolition of slavery arrived, the custom of leaving all the menial and toilsome work to the colored people, who formed the majority of the population, continued. It is as strong as ever to-day. Both on farms and in towns it is by the «Cape boys >> or by the Kafirs that all unskilled labor is performed. The only considerable exception was afforded by the German colonists who were planted in the eastern part of Cape Colony after the Crimean War of 1854, in which they had served among the British forces. These colonists cultivated the land themselves, and cultivated it far more efficiently than did the surrounding Kafirs. But to-day one is told that their children are now disinclined to do so, and that they have either sold or let their allotments to the natives, or else are working the land by hired native labor. All other immigrants from Europe adopt the habits of the country in a few weeks or months. The English carpenter has a «boy» to carry his tools for him; the English bricklayer has a native hodman to hand the bricks to him, which he proceeds to set. Work requiring skill is very often done by whites, because they do it much better; but white labor leans on and uses black labor. So on the railways the stationmasters and guards are white, but the heavy jobs which need little skill fall to the blacks; so field-hands and those who actually herd the cattle are natives, though there are usually whites over them in a position of authority. In all new countries skilled labor is dear, but in South Africa it is exceptionally dear, because the skilled white man insists on having blacks beneath him, and black labor, though it is cheap if measured by the price paid for it, is really dear if measured by what it accomplishes; for it is unskilled and uncertain, the native, except in a few of the older parts of the country, not yet hav

ing acquired that habit of steady and patient industry which makes labor effective. It is of course in the newest districts, where the natives are still raw and scarcely removed from a savage state, that this uncertainty is most felt. In the gold-fields of the Transvaal and Mashonaland the supply of native workpeople often falls short, although at Johannesburg a native can earn three pounds (fifteen dollars) a month besides his food and such lodging as he needs. The development of the mines is of course to some extent retarded by this difficulty of obtaining a permanent supply of labor.

The facts we have been considering have a bearing upon still wider questions. They indicate that, as the bulk of the population is now black, so it will remain. The substratum of society, which is larger than the strata that it supports, seems likely to be, probably forever, composed of colored people. What, then, will be the relation of these colored people to the whites? This is a question of so much interest to American readers, who have in the Southern States of their own country a similar problem to solve, that it deserves a comparatively full discussion.

The colored population of South Africa consists of far more diverse elements than does that of the Southern States of America. Besides the race which was formed by the mixture of the imported negro slaves with the indigenous Hottentots, there are a good many Malays in Cape Colony, and a still larger number of East Indians in Natal and the Transvaal. Over and above these, there is a great host of Kafirs, some civilized and established as servants or agriculturists among the Europeans, many more living under their own tribal system and following their savage customs. The grades of advancement among these natives from pure barbarism to civilization are almost infinite. Scarcely less varied are the intellectual capacities of the different elements in this mixed multitude of colored people. All, however, the educated and the savage, the Christian and the heathen, the African and the Indian,-are alike treated by the whites as divided from themselves by a wide and impassable gulf. No one can imagine a social separation more complete than this is; nor is there any feature of South African life which strikes the visitor with a more painful surprise than the sentiment, I will not say of hatred, yet certainly of repulsion, which he finds so generally entertained by the higher toward the less advanced races. This sentiment is not chiefly due to the long and fierce wars waged with the Kafirs, for

the respect felt for their bravery has tended to efface the recollection of their frequent cruelties. Neither is it caused (except as respects the Indian traders) by the dislike of the poorer whites to the competition with them in industry of a class living in a much rougher way and willing to accept much lower wages. It seems to spring partly from the old feeling of contempt for the slaves (a feeling which has descended to a generation that has never known slavery as an actual system), partly to physical aversion, and partly to an incompatibility of character and temper which makes the faults of the colored man more offensive to the white than the (perhaps morally as grave) faults of members of his own white race. Even between civilized peoples, such as Germans and Russians, Frenchmen and Englishmen, there is a disposition to be unduly annoyed by traits and habits which are not so much culpable in themselves as distasteful to men constructed on somewhat different lines. This sense of annoyance is of course more intense toward a race so widely removed from the modern European as the Kafirs are. The attitude of contempt I am describing pervades all classes, though it is strongest in those rude and uncultivated whites who plume themselves all the more upon their color because they have little else to plume-themselves upon; while among the most refined and thoughtful it is restrained by self-respect, and by the sense that allowances must be made for the defects of a backward race. There are always men of weight in the Cape legislature who hold it their duty to protect native interests, and who try to inculcate a friendly policy. The general tendency, however, is that which I have described. It rarely if ever happens that a native, whatever his rank, is received on any social occasion inside a white house; indeed, he would seldom be permitted, except as a domestic servant, to enter a private house at all. When Khama, the famous chief of the Ba-Mangwato, a Christian, and a man of admittedly high character, who has ruled his people with singular wisdom and ability, was in England last autumn, and was there entertained at lunch by the Duke of Westminster and other persons of social eminence, the news excited general annoyance and disgust among the whites in South Africa. A story was told me of a garden party given by the wife of a leading white ecclesiastic, the appearance at which of a native clergyman led many of the white guests to withdraw in dudgeon. Once, when I was a guest at a mission station in Basutoland, I was

asked by my host whether I had any objection to his bringing in to the family meal the native pastor, who had been preaching to the native congregation. When I expressed some surprise that he should think it necessary to ask, he explained that race feeling was so strong among the colonists that it would have been deemed improper and, indeed, insulting to make a white guest sit down at the same table with a black man, unless special permission had first been given. Thus one may say that there is no social intercourse whatever between the races; their relations are purely those of business. Now and then the black man gets ahead of the white, but the latter's pride of race remains. I was told of a white who condescended to be hired to work by a Kafir, but stipulated that the Kafir should address him as «Boss.» Of intermarriage there is, of course, no question. It is not forbidden by law in the two British colonies, as it is in most, if not all, of the Southern States of America, but it is excessively rare; nor does it appear that there are now other irregular unions outside marriage, as there constantly were in the old days while slavery existed. In this respect the case of South Africa remarkably resembles that of the Southern States, where also there is now very little mixture of blood, though there was a great deal fifty years ago. Probably in both cases it is better that the races should not mingle their blood; for the white race would be likely to lose more than the black race would gain.

It must not, however, be supposed that this social severance is accompanied, at least in the British parts of South Africa, by unjust laws or harsh treatment. Since the famous ordinance of equal civil rights, published in 1828, colored people (in Cape Colony) have been, in the eye of the law, on a level with whites. When the electoral franchise was conferred on the colonists in 1853, no color-line was drawn. Some years ago the whites, and the Dutch party in particular, which is the specially anti-native party, became uneasy at the strength of the colored vote, though it was not a solid vote, and a statute was accordingly passed introducing a combined property and educational qualification, which will tend to reduce the number of colored voters. The same restrictions are, however, applied to whites also, so there has been no inequality of treatment. Neither the natives nor their friends in the colony seem to complain of this act, which may be defended by observing that while, on the one hand, it admits those colored people whose

intelligence qualifies them for the exercise of the suffrage, it excludes a large mass whose ignorance and indifference to political issues would put them at the mercy of rich and unscrupulous candidates. It appears less open to objection than some of the attempts recently made in one or two of the Southern States to evade the provisions of the latest amendments to the Constitution of the United States. In Natal the Kafirs are nearly all in a tribal condition, and hardly any natives enjoy the suffrage, though they are not expressly excluded. There has grown up, however, a strong antagonism to the Indian immigrants, who are numerous and intelligent enough to cause disquiet to the small white population, and legislation has been proposed for excluding them from the electoral suffrage. Probably, however, this legislation will not take color per se as the disqualifying element, but will be based upon the fact that the Indians come from a country where responsible government has not been granted to the inhabitants. The two Dutch republics are much less indulgent than the two British colonies. Neither in the Orange Free State nor in the Transvaal is any person of color permitted to vote; indeed, he cannot even hold land. Democratic republics are not necessarily respectful of what used to be called human rights.» Indeed, the Transvaal Dutch are accustomed to taunt the Cape colonists at being, to use their phrase, «ruled by black men,» though the colored vote is an appreciable factor only in a few constituencies of the colony, while it seldom or never happens that a colored man is either elected to the Assembly or appointed to any public office.

There is in the British colonies a certain amount of special legislation regarding the blacks, designed partly to protect them, partly to impose restrictions on them in what is supposed to be the general interest of the community. Cape Colony, for instance, has a so-called "curfew law,» obliging natives who are out after dark to be provided with a pass, a law which acts oppressively in the case of the best class of natives, though defended as necessary for public order and security, having regard to the large population of the lower class and their propensity to petty thefts. The colony has also passed certain labor laws » intended to check the disposition of the Kafirs living on the native reserves to become idle or take to vagrancy. There is, no doubt, a danger that people who have never acquired habits of steady industry (for the tribal Kafir leaves to his wives

the cultivation of his plot of maize or sorghum) may relapse into a laziness prejudicial to their own advancement, seeing that a few weeks' labor is enough to provide all the food which the ordinary Kafir needs to support him through the year. But as such laws are prompted not merely by a regard for the welfare of the Kafir, but also by the desire of the white colonist to get plenty of labor, and to get it cheap, they are obviously open to abuse, and require great care in administration. In the Dutch republics the laws which control the natives are far more stringent. The Transvaal Boers have sometimes worked their system of apprenticeship, and the scheme of treating natives resident on a farm as being attached to it for the purposes of labor, in a way which can with difficulty be distinguished from predial serfdom. And even in the more liberal Orange Free State a "pass law » is in force, which requires every native moving from place to place to be provided with a passport, in default of which he may be detained. On the other hand, the laws which, in Natal and in the Free State, and in the territories of the British South Africa Company, forbid the supply of intoxicating liquor to natives are clearly in the interest of the natives themselves, and it is much to be regretted that the influence of the wine-growers and distillers in Cape Colony has hitherto prevented a similar protection from being enacted there.

A survey of the laws in force is of course not enough to convey an impression of the actual treatment of the weaker, though more numerous, native element by the stronger whites. That treatment is, in the two British colonies and in the Orange Free State, as well as in the territory of the Company, seldom harsh or unjust. Sometimes a farmer punishes his servants with excessive severity, and escapes punishment because a local jury refuses to convict him. A shocking case of this kind occurred a few years ago. Some times an unscrupulous trader defrauds the natives he has been dealing with on the outskirts of civilization, and enjoys immunity because it is hard to secure legal evidence of his misdeeds. Sometimes an employer tricks his native workmen out of part of their wages, relying on their ignorance of the modes of obtaining redress. But, on the whole, the natives have not much to complain of in the way of positive injury; and public sentiment, if less strict than that of England, is more strict than it used to be, and more strict than it has been, at various epochs, in the Southern States of America.

The lynching of natives is unknown. This is partly due to the presence of missionaries, who are always quick at reporting offenses committed against natives in the outlying districts; partly also to the high sense of duty shown by the magistrates and other officials, especially those of the imperial government. It is, however, largely due also to the general good conduct of the Kafirs themselves. There is much petty pilfering, and a disposition to acts of violence against other natives, but much more rarely against whites. Native morality is of course lax in many of the points which whites deem important; but outrages on women, such as are, unhappily, common in parts of the Southern States of America, are extremely rare. Indeed, it is only in Natal, where the native population is very large, and the white population small and scattered, that one hears of them at all. Thus the cause to which most of the American lynchings are due is absent, while the general respect for law and authority so conspicuous in South Africa, where people do not carry arms (except for the purposes of hunting), and murderous affrays scarcely ever occur, has prevented the habit of taking the law into one's own hands from growing up among the whites.

Similar in many respects as is the position of the natives in South Africa to that of the colored people in the Southern States, there are also some remarkable differences. Though in point of natural capacity and strength of character the Bantu races are equal, possibly even superior, to the negroes brought from Africa to America (most of whom seem to have come from the Guinea coasts), the former are, in point of education and in habits of industry, far behind the latter. They have not been subjected to the industrial training of nearly two centuries of plantation life or domestic service, while comparatively few have had that stimulation which the grant of the franchise after the war of secession has exercised upon a large section of the American negroes, even in places where they have not been permitted to turn their nominal rights to practical account. On the other hand, the South African natives are far more numerous, relatively to the whites, than the negroes are in the Southern States. In the two British colonies and the two Dutch republics the total number of Europeans is about 650,000, that of colored people about 2,450,000, or nearly four to one, whereas in the old slave States of America there were (in 1890) 13,000,000 of whites against 6,740,000 colored, or just half. Moreover, in Amer

ica there are more than forty millions of whites in the other parts of the republic, and the strength of the white element is therefore overwhelmingly in excess. This numerical preponderance of the blacks in South Africa does not, indeed, constitute any present political danger. The Kafirs and other colored people are not only very backward, but have no cohesion whatever. Most of them live under their tribal chiefs, and the tribes are divided from one another not only by differences of language, but by ancient feuds. Zulu laborers, for instance, and Kafirs of the Xosa tribes will sometimes fight when employed side by side as railway plate-layers. The time is still far distant when all the natives will have learned to use one speech, and when they will have so far advanced in knowledge and character as to be capable of combining and of producing from among themselves leaders who can direct their collective action. So far, therefore, as politics go, there is really no more reason for alarm in South Africa for a century to come than there is in the United States. It is not so much the political as the social situation that here, as in the United States, may excite some apprehension. And this situation is likely to grow rather worse than better as time goes on; because the more educated and capable the natives become, the more will their industrial competition press upon the whites, and the less inclined will the natives be to acquiesce, as they now do, in the social disparagement and inferiority to which the contempt and aversion of the whites condemn them.

This race problem is one of the two clouds which hang over the future of South Africa. The other is the jealousy and rivalry of the Dutch and English. This latter seems for the moment to cover the sky. Yet it is really less menacing, for the difficulties it springs from are difficulties which can be measured, and which do not go so deep down into the roots of human feeling and character. Although the antagonism of the two European races has been a great misfortune for the country, and may give a good deal more trouble in the next few years or decades, it need not be permanent; for a fusion is not merely possible, but even probable, if judicious means are followed, whereas in the case of blacks and whites fusion is evidently out of the question.

In the second of these three articles, the relations of the Dutch colonists to the British government during the first years of British rule were mentioned, and the circum

stances which led to the establishment of the two Dutch republics briefly sketched. I now come to the present relations of the two races, a topic full of interest, but not easy to discuss, because at the moment of writing this article (March, 1896) the political position is a critical one, and events may happen which will have transformed that position before these lines can be read in the United States. Common prudence requires that one should avoid prophecies which a few weeks may falsify, and be content with setting forth those broad features of the situation, a knowledge of which will at least help the reader to comprehend any and every event as it may supervene.

The South African Dutch, or Boers (farmers), as we commonly call them, are a very peculiar people, who, in isolation and backwardness, if in little else, resemble the Spaniards of such a country as Ecuador more than they do any French or British colony. They have little tie to Holland, little knowledge of, or interest in, anything that passes in Europe. Their attachment is wholly given to Africa, so much so that some have even disclaimed European origin, till it was pointed out to them that if not of European they must be of Kafir stock. The love they bear to Africa is all the more intense because the mother-country has no share in it, and their detachment from the stream of modern life is increased by the fact that they speak a tongue which is so unlike modern cultivated Dutch that they have to learn that language as they would learn Latin or English. Many cannot even understand the Dutch version of the Bible, or comprehend the talk of a Hollander when he comes among them. Their speech-the taal, as they call it-is very rude, with a small vocabulary, corrupted to some extent by native words, and incapable of expressing abstract ideas. It has helped to keep them ignorant and curiously conservative in their social and religious ideas. Not a few look upon the scab that afflicts their sheep as a direct visitation from the Almighty, against which it is impious to take human means. Some opposed railways because God had made the country without them. So rigid is their orthodoxy that one of the former Transvaal presidents lost his hold upon the people because he became suspected of free opinions.1

1 The story is sometimes told that they distrusted him because he was reported to have declared in a sermon

having been formerly a Predikant (preacher)—that the devil had no tail, that personage being always represented with one in the old picture Bible which no Boer family is without.