PRKSIDKXTIAL ADDRKSS SKCTIOX I'. 95 



Climatic considerations suggest a partition of the Union 

 of South Africa into two regions — one to the east, which is 

 favourable to the natives, where the European inhabitants are 

 mostly of English descent, and one to the west more favourable 

 to white settlement, and where at the present time the country 

 people are nearh* all of Dutch descent. The suggestion occurs 

 to one that the one area might be developed as a plantation 

 colony, with an English governing^ class, on English methods, 

 and the other gradually converted into a purely European 

 colony where Dutch ideals would have full scope for evolution. 

 The idea may seem fantastic, and certainly cannot be described 

 as belonging to practical politics: I throw it out as a sugges- 

 tion for what it is worth. 



Remembering, however, the immediate problem of how 

 the white and black races in contact are to attain satisfactory 

 economic relations with one another, I would venture to close 

 with an aphorism — that a country will, in tlie end, belong to 

 the people who do its work. 



THE NITRUGEX PROBLEM 



r»y J. A. WiLKixsox. M.A.. 



Professor of Cheinistrij , Uniccrsitij CoUefjc. JoJuni neshin (/. 



Pnhlic Lecture, deJirered <>ii the ereuiitu of J u] ij lil. 1920. 



The birth of tliis Association, under whose tegis we meet 

 to-night, took place in the year in which peace was restored To 

 this land after three years of strenuous war. I'lie development 

 of the country up to this period had proceeded slowly, but the 

 exploitation of the rich gold and diamond deposits gave the 

 spur to a lively interest from without and quickened activity 

 within for the sake of the wealth thus revealed. The heritage 

 of the conflict in which South Africa was engaged in the open- 

 ing years of this century may be stated in broad terms as the 

 gradual acknowledgment by the community that the time had 

 arrived for its evolution as a State and the utilisation of its 

 resources for the benefit of its peoples. The partial consumma- 

 tion of this idea took place in 1910, when the four southern 

 Provinces were welded into T^nion Its scientific evolution, 

 which this xlssociation was founded to assist, und has indeed 

 fostered to a remarkable degree, has hitherto seen its greatest 

 triumphs, on the one hand, in the establishment and rapid 

 development of facilities for the higher education of its citizens, 

 such as obtain in the older countries of the world, and. on the 

 other, in the foundation by the Government of scientific and 

 technical departments devoted to specialised branches of 



* Illustrated by lantern slides specially prepared by the author. 



