MR. RHODES AND THE NATIVE QUESTION.
(To TUB EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") Sr,—Discussing the South African native question in the
Spectator of June 23rd, you clearly state, in two places, your opinion that the blacks must have a separate system from the whites. It may interest those of your readers who attach value to your views on South African affairs to read the following extract from a speech made by Mr. Cecil Rhodes in June, 1887 :—
"I will lay down my own policy on this native question. Either you have to receive them on an equal footing as citizens, or to call theta a subject race. Well, I have made up my mind that there must be class legislation, that there must be Pass Laws, and Peace Preservation Acts, and that we have got to treat natives, where they are in a state of barbarism, in a different way to ourselves. We are to be lords over them. These are my politics on native affairs, and these are the politics of South Africa. Treat the natives as a subject people as long as they continue in a state of barbarism and communal tenure; be the lords over them, and let them be a subject race, and keep the liquor from them."
Later on he shows the danger of complicating racial differ- ences between English and Dutch by the introduction of the native vote, and adds "For myself, I tell the Bond, if I cannot keep my position in the country as an Englishman on the Europaan vote, I wish to be cleared out, for I am not going to the native vote for support."
The views of Mr. Rhodes, whether he is our hero or our bug- bear, are of immense value ; in this instance they are par- ticularly so, for he was speaking in an isolated position in the Cape Parliament, against the political party to which he belonged, and undoubtedly in earnest.—I am, Sir, &c., [Our counsel and that of Mr. Rhodes may be similar, but it would, we suspect, be very differently applied. His pro- posal is that the blacks should be serfs ; ours is that they should enjoy all the rights that guests possess in a civilised State.—En. Spectator.]
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