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* `The Negro' (Du Bois), pp. 108-109.
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But the Commission would force us to give up our agrarian occupation when we are debarred by Acts of Parliament from following other profitable industries in our own country. This is equivalent to saying that Englishmen must be taught to close down their shops, stop their shipping industry and give up their maritime trade.
The Orange "Free" State
The Provincial difficulties I have endeavoured to point out become more serious when we regard the conditions in the so-called "Free" States. There the native position is rendered exceptionally desperate by a number of rigorous class enactments. Formerly these discriminating laws were eased by the action of the State Presidents who were in the habit of issuing exemption certificates to Natives who wished to buy land, either from other Natives or from Europeans; but now, these harsh laws, besides being rigidly enforced against all Natives, were made more acute in 1913, while there is no one in the position once occupied by the President, who might be able or inclined to grant any relief.
Whenever by force of character or sheer doggedness one Native has tried to break through the South African shackles of colour prejudice, the Colour Bar, inserted in the South African Constitution in 1909, instantly hurled him back to the lowest wrung of the ladder and held him there. Let me mention only one such case.
About ten years ago Mr. J. M. Nyokong, of the farm Maseru, in the Thabanchu district, invested about 1,000 Pounds in agricultural machinery and got a white man to instruct his nephews in its use. I have seen his nephews go forth with a steam sheller, after garnering his crops every year, to reap and thresh the grain of the native peasants on the farms in his district. But giving evidence before the Lands Commission two years ago, this industrious black landowner stated that he had received orders from the Government not to use his machinery except under the supervision of a white engineer. This order, he says, completely stopped his work. The machinery is used only at harvesting time; no white man would come and work for him for two months only in the year, and as he cannot afford to pay one for doing nothing in the remaining ten months, his costly machinery is reduced to so much scrap iron. This is the kind of discouragement and attrition to which Natives who seek to better their position are subjected in their own country.
The Native Affairs Department
Perhaps the greatest puzzle in this ocean of native difficulties, to which one can but slightly refer in this chapter, is the attitude of some of the gentlemen in charge of the Native Affairs Department — the only Branch of the South African administration run exclusively on native taxes. It is perhaps as well to cite one instance illustrative of their methods of administering native affairs. The Rev. J. L. Dube, President of the Native Congress, gave evidence before the Lands Commission and produced letters addressed to him by certain Natal firms, from which I extract the following passages: —
== If you are prepared to purchase this land my Company would be prepared to do business with you. . . . In view of the fact that you and Cele have already purchased portion of the Company's property adjoining the land now offered for sale, we think there would be no objection on the part of the Governor General in giving his consent to the transfer.*
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* U.G. 22, p. 557.
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