GERMANS AND BLACK MACES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sut,—Your paper is so widely read by persons of all classes that venture to hope you will find room in your columns for the fol- lowing facts. I may add that I have written to Johannesburg to try and procure one of the postcards described, and, if I can do so, I intend getting it copied and distributed broadcast, as a good advertisement for German rule !—I am, Sir, &c., Aledhurst. DORA ELAND,
of Ravenshill. North Transvaal, South Africa.
The declaration of the Labour Party in their message to the Russian People that they can find no evidence as to the Ger- man Rule over Black Races having been much worse than that of any other European State, by which I imagine they included Great Britain, will cause great surprise and indignation to those who are acquainted with our British Colonies and Dependencies and have had actual experience of British and German treatment of Natives.
I have resided for over twenty years in the Northern Transvaal, where, owing to Kruger's prejudices against Britishers, the first European Pioneers were nearly all Germans; and I have had ample opportunity of judging of the latter's methods; and also have witnessed the beneficent effects of English methods begun under the Imperial Government after the Boer War and con- tinued under the Union Government under General Botha's leadership.
When 1 first knew that part of the country there was very little law or order maintained by the Dutch Government, and settlers were free to do pretty well what they liked with the natives residing on their farms. Amongst our nearest neighbours were two young brothers, Germans, well educated, musical, quite pleasant to meet socially. These young men were in a constant state of friction with their farm natives, one of whom was shot dead by one of their white assistants, and on one occasion when my husband went to visit them on business he found their natives working in the fields chained together like veritable slaves!
Of course, such excesses were put an end to when British rule arrived, and Native Commissioners were appointed everywhere to look after the natives' interests and protect them from oppression. But even as lately as 1914, after the outbreak of the present war, a naturalized German, who had played a leading part in the district for some years, brutally kicked a Kaffir woman, one of his outdoor hands, whom the doctor had pronounced unfit to work, because she refused to come to work when ordered to do so by him. He was fined £10 by the English Acting Native Com- missioner, much to his chagrin. Germans have no respect for the native women and are abso- lutely without shame as to forming relations with them, about which they boast openly. I am far from saying that all English- men are blameless in this respect; but almost all feel that this sort of thing is shameful and degrading to a man, and many practise and live up to a high ideal, and are respected and be- loved accordingly by the natives.
But it may be objected that I am speaking of individuals, when the matter really relates to Governments. I answer that the individual makes the Government, and you cannot have a just and humane Government composed of individuals who are brutal and savage by nature. During the campaign in German South-West Africa thousands of natives went from my district to supply labour for the British
Army, and I myself have heard these Kaffirs returning to their homes tell other Kaffirs that they would rather be dead than live under German rule. Putting out of eyes and mutilation for the slightest offence were common occurrences in that Colony before General Botha's army took it. White men who went on that cam- paign told how they had seen exhibited in the shop-windows postcards depicting the pleasing scene of three Kaffirs hanging up to a tree with their eyes put out. This was considered a pretty little piece of comedy to send home to Berlin or Hamburg, just as we in South Africa would send home postcards of little black piccaninnies in comic or attractive attitudes!
Have the Labour leaders who composed that letter not heard of the cruel fate of the Hereros tribe, who quite recently were abso- lutely wiped out by the Germans, those who were not actually killed being driven, men, women and children, into the desert to die of starvation P Everywhere General Botha's troops went they were received with acclamations of delight and friendship by the natives in the Colony, and in no case could the Germans succeed in getting any of the native tribes to fight for them.
England has had native wars in the past, and has killed many natives in them, but she has also a glorious record, unattained by any other nation, of beneficent rule and of beloved and respected rulers, men who have laboured with absolute self-devotion to help those weaker races. The names of Livingstone, Nicholson, General Gordon, and a host of others, stand out like stars in the history of our dealings with the native races; and I am convinced that there are very few Englishmen holding posts of responsibility abroad, whose lives are not inspired, consciously or unconsciously, by the thought that they belong to the same race which produced these heroes.
I submit that Great Britain, on account of the inherited gifts of her eons, and of her long experience in these matters, is the nation best fitted to be the guardian of the coloured races; but, failing her, let us have an enlightened State, such as France or America, inspired by the same ideals of justice and humanity.
[It would be an act of the utmost inhumanity to allow any native population that has been freed to wine again under German rule. We say this not because we want more colonies for ourselves—as a fact, we do not want them—but because we should regard new burden:, and responsibilities as preferable to having acts of shameful connivance on the national conscience. If it be judged that Great Britain should not assume the control of more colonies, then let the United States take control if she is willing to render this service to humanity. In no case ought there to be any attempt to revive the discredited principle of the joint-control of native onnmunities, and above all Germany, at all events for a generation, must be given no renewed opportunities for bestial oppression.—ED. Spectator.]
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