Among such intellectual giants, one was inclined at the outset to feel somewhat out of place, but thanks to the encouraging Brotherhood cheer which always accompany their reception of a speaker, the stripling soon finds himself at home, as is always the case on any Brotherhood platform, and that was how we felt that day.
Mr. W. Cross said, in part, that one of the most striking proofs of the unity of the Empire was shown in the splendid way that men had come forward to assist the Mother Country on the battlefields of Europe from all parts of our Dominions. The coloured men from India had come as free men and fellow-subjects to do their share. The Empire was composed of territories and people — once separated by race and creed, now united under one flag. There was a great resemblance between Brotherhood and Empire. In it all kinds of religion were represented, yet all were united in one great principle. It had been said the soul of Russia was pity, of France reason, and of Britain justice. No Empire could be built to stand unless based on justice and freedom. The principle of freedom underlay Empire as it underlay Brotherhood also. There was no limit to the Empire that was founded upon unity, toleration, justice, and liberty; it surely had no end. Similarly there was no frontier to the kingdom of Brotherhood, and they looked for a kingdom out-spanning far beyond the roll of British drums — the kingdom of Brotherhood — the kingdom of Christ.
Referring to the limitations of colour in South Africa, Mr. Cambridge said: "Have you no cattle and sheep in South Africa? Are there no birds? Have you not observed that they are of different colours and yet are not restricted in their flight on that account; and are you going to run counter to the work of nature in regard to human beings? The British Empire has a population of over 430,000,000, of which less than 100,000,000 are white, and there was a big problem to solve: `How to rule with justice and equity this great multitude of various races and creeds and consolidate them as fellow-subjects of one great and mighty Empire.' The future of the British Empire could be secured by following the high ideals of `Brotherhood' which were foreshadowed by Christ in the Bible, and by great writers such as Shakespeare and Addison. The fall of Rome was due to her failure to recognize the duty of welding her subjects together as brothers one and all under the Fatherhood of God. . . ."
It is a pity that the argument used by Mr. Cambridge would not go down with the majority of the rulers in South Africa. If it did one would remind them that even South African ladies pay higher prices for black silks than they do for white silks; that the value of domestic animals does not as a whole appear to be influenced by their colour: thus, whereas the fleece of white sheep commands a higher price in the South African wool market than the fleece of black sheep, their mutton has about the same flavour. Again of horned cattle, which give the same quality of beef, irrespective of colour; farmers will tell you of them that coloured cattle are among the best for farming and other purposes, while white bullocks are subject to sore eyes, and white cows continually suffer from erythema of the nipples (`Garget-mammitis'); yet we have not heard that this peculiarity had any influence on the quality of their beef or the quality of the milk they give. The springbuck, whence the best South African venison is obtained, has the colours of black, white and brown; and this blend has not prevented it from having the reputation of being the prettiest and most graceful antelope in the world. But argument in this respect is simply wasted on the ruling caste in South Africa: there, Mr. Cross's views about "freedom, liberty," etc., will simply be laughed out of court, unless he limits them to white men; so that one sometimes wonders whether Christ's metaphor about "casting pearls before swine" does not find an application here. Look at the weighty arguments delivered inside and outside Parliament against the Natives' Land Act. Surely no legislature with a sense of responsibility could have passed that law after hearing arguments of such force and weight against it; but the South African legislature passed that Act and seems to glory in the wretched result of its operation.
Mr. Boote expressed his pride in finding how shining was the native policy of New Zealand when contrasted with the native policy of South Africa. "Why," said Mrs. Boote to us, with evident satisfaction, "we have got Maori members of Parliament and our country is all the better for it." She had every justification to look pleased at the comparison which reveals the justice of her country's rule, for we remember how the women of New Zealand got the vote. The white members of Parliament in New Zealand were equally divided on the Women's Enfranchisement Bill; but for the native members, there would have been a tie, as was the case in South Africa three years ago, when the white members of the South African Parliament, as seemed likely there, wheedled the Women's Suffrage Bill out of the House. Happily for Women's Franchise in the Antipodes the Maori members voted solidly for the Bill and secured the passage of a reform which, judging by the satisfactory results in Australia and elsewhere, gave the lead to the rest of the Empire.
It was at Hammersmith, where the chairman after hearing our story of the operation of the Natives' Land Act, in moving a resolution, in a sympathetic speech, asked: "Why did we spend 240,000,000 Pounds and kill 10,000 men in the South African War if this is the result?" He asked the permission of the audience to change the last hymn on the programme and sing the Brotherhood Song of Liberty.
As the newspaper `South Africa' seems to insinuate that the Brotherhood movement by allying itself with our cause had deviated from its aims and objects, we would explain that the chairman did not run out of the meeting to borrow a book from somewhere containing that song. The song is No. 26 of the `Fellowship Hymnal' — the hymn-book of the P.S.A. and Brotherhoods.
At subsequent meetings it had often been our pleasure, after delivering the message from the South African Natives, to sit down and hear the chairman give out that hymn, and the orchestra lead off with the tune of Costa's March of the Israelites. A pleasant variety was lent to it at the Victoria Brotherhood in Monmouthshire, which we visited on the first Sunday in 1915. There the chairman gave out the now familiar hymn, and the grand organ chimed the more familiar tune of "Jesu, lover of my soul" (Hollingside's), and the variety lent extra freshness to the singing of the Brotherhood Song of Liberty, which is reproduced: —
Men whose boast it is that ye
Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed —
Slaves unworthy to be freed?
Is true freedom but to break
Fetters for our own dear sake,
And with leathern hearts forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear,
And with heart and hand to be
Earnest to make others free.