KAFIR SOCIALISM.*
THE problem of black and white, or, as it may be, brown and white, is so much the most serious of the questions of the future that we are greatly in the debt of any one who can cast some light on it. It is unquestionably our foremost Imperial problem, and South Africa is in many ways the best ground on which to study it, for there we have not complicated the case by any very bad mistakes. In spite of the suspicions of a certain type of Radical, South Africa's record in connexion with the dark races is singularly clean. Mr. Dudley Kidd has won a place as almost our chief authority upon Kafir life. We have had the pleasure before this of calling attention in our columns to the remarkable combination of sympathetic observation and sane generalisation to be found in such books as The Essential Kafir and Savage Childhood. The author's interest is primarily scientific, but he has also an eye for the picturesque, and a very lucid and attractive style. In his new work he faces boldly a subject which many writers have shipwrecked on,—the relation of the Kafir to the white government. It is a subject which involves an understanding of Kafir nature and customs which few men possess. The ground, as Mr. Kidd says truly, is littered with half-truths. Few have had the patience to examine the facts, and most have decided hastily in accordance with their business interests or a priori sentiments. "The question," according to Mr. Kidd, "then ceases to be the native, and becomes the white, problem." Mr. Kidd looks at the natives as they are, not as the various theorists would have them be; for before we can decide upon the Kafir's position in the community we must know how far his attitude differs from ours. The first fact which he notes, and proves to our mind beyond possibility of doubt, is that the root principle of the Kafir community is Socialistic. It is so organised that the means of life are held in collective ownership. "The Kafir, contrary to ordinary belief, has the most extraordinarily well-developed sense of altruism and camaraderie, which is very rarely equalled amongst Western nations."
It is not a case of finding what you set out to seek. Mr. Kidd is no Socialist. He considers it a rudimentary stage of development, and thinks that for England to go back to it would mean "regression to semi-barbarism." But he is very willing to recognise the merits of the system in the case of an uncivilised people. The foundation of Kafir life is the clan system, which involves group association and group responsibility. Individual rights are unknown. The land, the army, the administration of justice, religion, are all organised collectively, and the same is true of matters like food, beer, matrimony, and other private relations. The reason why " witchcraft " is so heinous an offence in Kafir eyes is that it is a sin against the communal well-being. That is to say, Kafir life is radically undemocratic, as we understand the word nowadays, for there is no allowance for individual development. There are obvious merits in the system. For one thing, it is the spontaneous outcome of genuine altruistic feeling, and therefore it works, which no Social- istic regime can do without such a basis. It makes for tribal peace, for a level of medium prosperity, for a real camaraderie, and for the control of individual appetites and passions. "Clan-custom and clan-taboo perform in primitive peoples what religion does, or tries to do, in more advanced nations." Its fault—and it is a grave one—is that it keeps all at the same low level, and gives neither incentive nor room for individual initiative. The coming of the white man broke down the clan system. One result has been beneficent : we have stopped inter-tribal wars and the death- penalty for witchcraft, and we have rendered the advance of the individual practicable. But in the ordinary relations of life we have taken away the great taboos, and as yet have put nothing in their place. Mr. Kidd is therefore wholly in the right when he pleads for a conservation of the clan system so far as is possible. We should endeavour to retard rather than hasten the process of its decay, till we have a real substi- tute to offer. At present there is no common ground between the two races, and it is idle to talk of bringing the Kafir at once into our social system. Mentally he is still separated from ne by a thousand years. In a very interesting chapter on "Kafir Conceptions of Justice" Mr. Kidd shows Kafir Soaiaiism : an Introduction to tlio Study of U. Native' Probtent. By Dudley Kidd. London: AL. had C. Black. [7s. Bd.'net..] that it is impossible to reconcile the ideas of the two races on this elementary social matter. Very often our action, while perfectly just in our sense, is completely at variance with Kafir conceptions, and an Act like Lord Charles Somerset's Spoor Law, which English opinion condemns as unjust, is to the Kafir right and proper. With these facts as a basis, it is difficult to disagree with Mr. Kidd's view on the question of the native franchise. We should give the Kafir every privilege he can use for his own good and for the good of the country, but force on him no privilege which he does not ask for; and in particular the doubtful boon of the franchise should be held back till the Kafir finds the need of it. Since the two races cannot fuse socially, it is only wise to keep them politically distinct. It is mere nonsense to pretend that the Kafir races have made any appeal for political equality. What they appeal for is, rather, discriminating legislation, to protect a backward race from the unfair competition which political equality involves. "The moment we grant an honest franchise, the Kafirs will find the white man eating up' the land."
The latter half of Mr. Kidd's book is a plea for a truly constructive native policy based on a correct understanding of native needs. The proximity of our civilisation is breaking down Kafir Socialism. "The problem before us now is how to awaken the sense of individualism, and how to educate the people, so as to destroy as little as possible of the finer traits in Kafir character." We have to educate him, but on a different system from the one now in vogue, for the Kafir educated on the wrong lines is the most hopeless case of all. Mr. Kidd does not belong to the short-sighted school of critics, too common in South Africa, who condemn utterly missionary enterprise. "I would speak," be says, "more hopefully of the Christian than of the merely educated native," and he thinks that the missionary must always remain the chief educational instrument. "Not a little of the popular hostility towards educating the Kafir is due to the fact that some of the men who are loudest in their objections arc
suspiciously weak in education themselves I have noticed that very few highly educated people in South Africa condemn the work of missions, though they frequently see the weak points in the missionary's methods." He lays down two desiderata for a native educational policy. In the first place, the Government should girt a number of their own institu- tions for training teachers, both white and black. In the second place,
"We should give the native a very simple and yet very varied kind of education. The stimuli we have applied have been too complex and too violent. We should apply a greater variety of very simple stimuli, never over-pressing one form. Instead of pinning our faith to books, we should call to our aid every con- ceivable form of training that has been found useful in the education of the feeble-minded in Europe and America. We should reduce book education to a minimum.".
Our relations to the Kafir cannot stand still. Civilisation having begun its work, must complete it. Unless the Ethiopian, in Mr. Kidd's words, can change his skin, it will be a very bad look-out for the white man in South Africa. Mr. Kidd is optimistic. He thinks that the Ethiopian can change his skin. "He may not be able to become a European, but he can become a Super-Kafir." Out of his profound knowledge of native life he can give wise suggestions. He thinks that it is most important that education should be con- tinued till the arrival of puberty, since all the good will be undone unless at this period the child is still kept in an elevating environment. He has some curious proposals, such as that the Government should use the custom of Lobola- i.e., the purchase of a wife by a gift of cattle—as a means of experimenting in State-regulated marriages with a view to raising the physical and moral level. This is perhaps fantastic, but there is no fantasy in Mr. Kidd's plea for an Ethnological Bureau, which would seriously study native conditions, and ensure that native policy was based on intelligence.
We commend this book as the most widely informed, well. balanced, and sympathetic study of the native problem that we have met with. If there are many South Africans who look on the native with Mr. Kidd's kindly and far-seeing eyes, South Africa may well resent interference from home in her native policy as gratuitous folly.
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