In South Africa the reverse is true. To begin with, the natives outnumber the whites four and one-half to one—in Rhodesia they are twenty to one—and they are increasing at a much greater rate than the Europeans. Moreover, the native population draws on half a dozen races, including the Zulus, Kaffirs, Hottentots and Basutos. These Negroes represent an almost primitive stage of development. They are mainly heathens and a prey to savagery and superstition. The Cape Colony is the only one that permits the black man to go to school or become a skilled artisan. Elsewhere the white retains his monopoly on the crafts and at the same time refuses to do any labour that a Negro can perform. Hence the great need of white immigration into the Union. The big task, therefore, is to secure adequate work for the Negro without permitting him to gain an advantage through it.
It follows that the moment the Kaffir becomes efficient and picks up a smattering of education he begins to think about his position and unrest is fomented. It makes him unstable as an employee, as the constant desertions from work show. The only way that the gold and diamond mines keep their thousands of recruited native workers is to confine them in compounds. The ordinary labourer has no such restrictions and he is here today and gone tomorrow.
It is not surprising to discover that in a country teeming with blacks there are really no good servants, a condition with which the American housewife can heartily sympathize. Before I went to Africa nearly every woman I knew asked me to bring her back a diamond and a cook. They were much more concerned about the cook than the diamond. Had I kept every promise that I made affecting this human jewel, I would have had to charter a ship to convey them. The only decent servant I had in Africa was a near-savage in the Congo, a sad commentary on domestic service conditions.
The one class of stable servants in the Colony are the "Cape Boys," as they are called. They are the coloured offspring of a European and a Hottentot or a Malay and are of all shades, from a darkish brown to a mere tinge. They dislike being called "niggers." The first time I saw these Cape Boys was in France during the war. South Africa sent over thousands of them to recruit the labour battalions and they did excellent work as teamsters and in other capacities. The Cape Boy, however, is the exception to the native rule throughout the Union, which means that most native labour is unstable and discontented.
Not only is the South African native a menace to economic expansion but he is likewise something of a physical danger. In towns like Pretoria and Johannesburg there is a considerable feeling of insecurity. Women shrink from being left alone with their servants and are filled with apprehension while their little ones are out under black custodianship. The one native servant, aside from some of the Cape Boys, who has demonstrated absolute fidelity, is the Zulu whom you see in largest numbers in Natal. He is still a proud and kingly-looking person and he carried with him a hint of the vanished greatness of his race. Perhaps one reason why he is safe and sane reposes in his recollection of the repeated bitter and bloody defeats at the hands of the white men. Yet the Zulu was in armed insurrection in Natal in the nineties.
South Africa enjoys no guarantee of immunity from black uprising even now in the twentieth century when the world uses the aeroplane and the wireless. During the past thirty years there have been outbreaks throughout the African continent. As recently as 1915 a fanatical form of Ethiopianism broke out in Nyassaland which lies north-east of Rhodesia, under the sponsorship of John Chilembwe, a negro preacher who had been educated in the United States. The natives rose, killed a number of white men and carried off the women. Of course, it was summarily put down and the leaders executed. But the incident was significant.
Prester John, whose story is familiar to readers of John Buchan's fine romance of the same name, still has disciples. Like Chilembwe he was a preacher who had acquired so-called European civilization. He dreamed of an Africa for the blacks and took his inspiration from the old kings of Abyssinia. He too met the fate of all his kind but his spirit goes marching on. In 1919 a Pan-African Congress was held in Paris to discuss some plan for what might be called Pan-Ethiopianism. The following year a negro convention in New York City advocated that all Africa should be converted into a black republic.
One example of African native unrest was brought strikingly to my personal attention. At Capetown I met one of the heads of a large Cape Colony school for Negroes which is conducted under religious auspices. The occasion was a dinner given by J. X. Merriman, the Grand Old Man of the Cape Colony. This particular educator spoke with glowing enthusiasm about this institution and dwelt particularly upon the evolution that was being accomplished. He gave me a pressing invitation to visit it. He happened to be on the train that I took to Kimberley, which was also the first stage of his journey home and he talked some more about the great work the school was doing.
When I reached Kimberley the first item of news that I read in the local paper was an account of an uprising in the school. Hundreds of native students rebelled at the quality of food they were getting and went on the rampage. They destroyed the power-plant and wrecked several of the buildings. The constabulary had to be called out to restore order.
In many respects most Central and South African Negroes never really lose the primitive in them despite the claims of uplifters and sentimentalists. Actual contact is a disillusioning thing. I heard of a concrete case when I was in the Belgian Congo. A Belgian judge at a post up the Kasai River acquired an intelligent Baluba boy. All personal servants in Africa are called "boys." This particular native learned French, acquired European clothes and became a model servant. When the judge went home to Belgium on leave he took the boy along. He decided to stay longer than he expected and sent the negro back to the Congo. No sooner did the boy get back to his native heath than he sold his European clothes, put on a loin cloth, and squatted on the ground when he ate, precisely like his savage brethren. It is a typical case, and merely shows that a great deal of so-called black-acquired civilization in Africa falls away with the garb of civilization.