THE NATIVES OF SOUTH AFRICA. [To THE EDITOR OF THE
"SPECTATOR."] SIB,—In the Spectator of August 10th you suggest in your article on "The Natives of South Africa" "that if the natives cannot be got to work in sufficient numbers the best plan will be to bring coolies from Asia under proper con- ditions." Allow me, as a native of a Colony (British Guiana) where coolie labour has been imported to supersede that of the blacks, who were unwilling to work on the sugar estates, preferring other forms of labour now being closed to them, to offer one or two remarks as to the unsuitability of such a course if we are to make work a civilising influence in South Africa. My experience in that Colony (. G.) tends to establish two facts. First, that the blacks regard themselves as infinitely superior to the imported coolies from the miserable conditions of their transportation and from the paltry wages they accept. Second, that upon no conditions will the blacks at present do estate work, as they regard doing • so now would bring them down to the level of the coolies whom they despise. May this not be the same case in South Africa ? Under the circumstances, would not the most humane course be to compel the natives to work by means of taxation rather than interpose the barrier of caste to their ever voluntarily seeking work am, Sir, &c., C. V. H.
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