THE NATIVES OF NATAL IN RELATION TO THE LAM). 245 



that unless the women can be interested and induced to co-operate, 

 any attempt will be doomed to failure. If our effort is to result 

 in higher lives, the home as well as the field must be improved. 

 Idle time must be filled in agreeably and profitably, and an effort 

 should be made to start small industries which could be taken up 

 by the women and children in their spare time. I have often 

 thought that a Government Commission to investigate the village 

 industries carried on in many Eastern countries could gather much 

 useful information, (iradually. individual tenure should be given 

 on conditional title, but 1 would not hurry on with the system, I 

 would rather wait until the people themselves recognised its 

 suitability and benefit, and asked for the change. An effort should 

 be made to train selected natives as instructors. The negro agri- 

 cultural graduates df the celebrated industrial institutes of 

 Hampton and Tuskegee.are working among the negro farmers of 

 the Southern States, personally visiting, advising, and encourag- 

 ing, and have been a wonderful factor in the recent uplift of their 

 people. I do not advocate any great outlay at first, nor the 

 creation of very elaborate machinery. I know we have to learn 

 our way, and there will be many disappointments. We will make 

 mistakes, but we must learn from our failures. Our aim must 

 be to help the people to help themselves, and in these areas a 

 measure of self-government should in time be granted., Whjle 

 always under white guidance and control, they, too, should be 

 allowed to make and learn from their mistakes and not be unduly 

 nursed and coddled. The policy carried on consistently would, I 

 believe, result in a great advance in the rural life of the locations, 

 and the good influence would spread thence to other areas. But 

 the good effect would he more than economic. General Botha, as 

 Minister for Native Affairs, has pointed out that we have lost the 

 confidence of the natives. Once they looked upon the Govern- 

 ment as a father who. while punishing their misdemeanours, also 

 protected them and looked after their interests. Now they look 

 on every new law and regulation with suspicion ; in some hidden 

 way the white man is going to benefit at their expense. l\i we are 

 to govern without friction and conflict we must regain this lost 

 confidence, and I believe an honest attempt to assist them in these 

 locations would do much to restore confidence and trust. Every 

 year a larger number of educated natives are leaving Educational 

 instittites. Under present social and economic conditions it is 

 difficult to see how these increasing ntunbers can find satisfactory 

 oj>enings for useful employment. But if the native areas are 

 developed these advanced ones may find a field for usefulness — 

 beyond anything at present offering — to help their own people. 

 And more than all. this upward movement will replace apathy and 

 l)ewilderment by hopeful effort. A people living without hope or 

 outlook in the future is in a dangerous state — ripe for the i)olitical 

 agitators. The restraints of tribal and family life, necessary and 

 salutary in the Oild life, are gradually breaking down. The cry 

 of the father is that when his children leave the home to work in 

 the wider world they forget their home diuies and become in- 



