A serious native riot occurred on Saturday at Port Elizabeth.
The president of the Native Workers' Organization, named Masabalata, was arrested. His followers attacked the police- station with the object of releasing him. The police and troops had to fire before the mob would disperse. The natives then attempted to seize the power-station outside the town, and to burn the petrol stores, and the police were again compelled to fire. Twenty-two persona were killed and forty wounded in these affrays. The rapid increase of a black industrial class has been followed by the spread of extreme Socialism among the natives in the compounds near the large towns. It is easy to imagine how the inflammatory doctrines to which the ordinary British workman is immune may lead the half-educated or
illiterate natives astray. The black agitators are of course encouraged in their racial propaganda by the bitter dissensions between the white parties. As there are less than a million and a-half white people in the South African Union and at least five million blacks, the question needs very careful handling. Mere repression will not suffice.
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