PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTIOX F. 89 



bywoner works for wages when lie can, and cultivates a little 

 giouud ii lie can, and usually does both. What his economic 

 position is may be judged from the i'act that a customary 

 rate of wag"es in Cape Colony is three shillings a day — and 

 that for employment wl/ich is seasonal and often leaves him 

 for weeks without any wages at all. This class naturally 

 merges into the next, namely, the destitute. 



In this fourth class I niean to include those who are 

 destitute without suffering from any actual bodilj^ or mental 

 disability. The poor white problem is essentially concerned 

 with these ; there is a fringe of poverty due to mental weak- 

 ness, degenerate bodily features (such as blindness), to 

 accidental disablement, to old age ; but the core of the problem 

 is the existence of a mass of persons who are fit to work, but 

 are unable to do so for what may be summarised as social 

 reasons. How many persons should be included it is 

 impossible, at present, to say, but it seems that the bulk of 

 the destitute country population do not suffer from bodily 

 disease, except such as is brought on by want and unhj-gienic 

 conditions, nor from definite mental defects. They constitute, 

 therefore, a class who might be reclaimed and made into useful 

 citizens by a suitable policy. 



Their disability lies in the fact that they have neither 

 any training in skilled work nor any habit of work. Their 

 traditions are those of the easy life of a landowner, with 

 Kafl&rs to work for him, and they cling to prejudices against 

 doing what they regard as " Kaffir work " — work which in 

 England or America is done by white men, but which they 

 expect to have done for them by servants — a pretension 

 sufficiently ridiculous on the part of men who can hardly earn 

 three shillings a day. Too much should not be made of this 

 prejudice, however; it could no doubt be got over in time; the 

 most serious defect is the ingrained laziness that goes with it. 



The enormous disparity in wages between town and 

 country tempts this destitute class into the towns, especially 

 Johannesburg, where they expect to find the streets paved 

 with gold, but where, of course, their want of skill leaves 

 them really worse off than before. Some are absorbed into 

 industry, but many are paupers, and many become the tools 

 of more actively disreputable and criminal persons, especially 

 as agents for the illicit sale of liquor to natives — a flourishing 

 industry on the Rand. Tlie migration is beginning to consti- 

 tute a serious danger to the State. 



The fifth group is that of the invalided and mentally or 

 physically deg'enerate, who have to be dealt with by the same 

 methods as in other countries. About them I do not propose 

 to speak. 



Apart from such jiroblems of poverty as are common to 

 all countries, the policy of the Government has hitherto been 

 directed almost exclusiA-ely, in the case of rural distress, to 

 alleviation by means of loans of land, stock or money. There 

 have been numerous attempts at establishing small rural 

 colonies, under supervision, and providing capital for the 

 colonists to start with. The usual result of this is that a 



