[55] Haussaland, p. 118.
[56] Quoted by Ling Roth, in Great Benin, p. 232.
[57] Ibid., p. 232.
[58] Ibid., p. 219.
[59] Lugard, A Tropical Dependency.
THE NEGRO IN BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA.[1]
It was in the United States Senate, during the summer of 1919, that there was in progress a debate concerning the ratification of the Treaty of Peace with Germany and the consequent ratification of the covenant of the League of Nations. Speaking to this question the words of Senator William Edgar Borah of Idaho were, in substance, these: "The President of the United States has said that if we fail to ratify the covenant of the League of Nations we will 'break the heart of the world.' ... But, sir, failure to ratify this covenant will not break the heart of China, which constitutes a third of the world; it will not break the heart of India; it will not break the hearts of the natives of the South African Republics."
How could the Senator from Idaho state so confidently that the failure of the League of Nations, under which Great Britain retained her rôle as protector of British South Africa, would not be a source of grief to the natives of the republics thus protected? What is the status, political, economic and social, of these people? For what do they stand on the African continent? How have they withstood the characteristic onslaught of British colonization and imperialism? What does "the autonomous development of small nations" mean to them? Any reasonable attempt to answer questions of this nature necessitates a review, however brief it may be, of the history of South African colonization by the English and of its relation to the native.