PRESinEiN'T S ADDRESS. 29 



nieiu, in conjunction with the Chamber of Mines, of Training^ 

 Schools for Miners widens these avenues of employment, which,, 

 it is hoped, will be more and more taken advantage of. There 

 are now over 70 pupils in attendance at the two schools already 

 established ; the intention is to arrange for six schools, accommo- 

 dating- 600 pupils. The course is a two year one, and the pupils 

 can maintain themselves from the commencement. Much 

 has been heard about the dread scourge of phthisis, but condi- 

 tions have so vastly improved during the past few years that with 

 miners properly trained in these schools to observe carefully 

 ])recautions for health and safety, it is, perhaps, not too much to 

 !say that now mining on the Rand presents no greater dangers 

 than many other occupations not usually considered dangerous. 



The Minister of Mines has said: "In regard to Miners 

 Phthisis, whereas in the past miners going down the mines always 

 feared they would contract the disease, he was gratified to say 

 that that state of affairs had practically disappeared altogether,, 

 and miners need no longer have any fear." For those occupying 

 technical ])()sitions, the risk is, of course, very much less, and it 

 is a source of regret that more South Africans do not c|ualify 

 for the higher lucrative ])Ositions on the mines. 



Reference must be made to the much-discussed " poor white " 

 problem. It is one of the greatest and most difficult problems in 

 South Africa, and as time goes on it grows in comj^lexity. Rut 

 it is of modern growth. Mr. Leslie, President of the Transvaal 

 Munici])al Association, who can s])eak with authority on this 

 question, said last year: "Thirty years ago. when I was in this 

 country, there were no i:)oor and there were no rich ; now there 

 are numbers of rich men and thousands of poor people." Com- 

 missions have been appointed and congresses have been held to 

 deal with this most baffling problem, and we must credit all 

 political parties with a genuine desire to remove this danger to 

 the State. In his illuminating report for 1916. the Director of 

 Education for the Transvaal refers to " jx)or whites" who have 

 "been " unable to survive the stress and strain of economic com- 

 petition." " This is a social difficulty evervwhere," he says, 

 " l)ut it is intensified here b}' the presence of the native. It is 

 lamentable enough under any . circumstances that a section of 

 the people shoukl Ije heli)less in the struggle for self-preserva- 

 tion; it is a national calamity, a canker in the social .organism, 

 when the sinking of that section coincides with the rising of the 

 coloured races. That is the danger here. Various remedies 

 have been put forward ; repatriation, relief works, labour colon- 

 ies and the like; and no doubt much can be done in the way of 

 amelioration by such measures. All refomiers, however, 

 have agreed that only by equipping the children of poor 

 whites, through education, with the weapons of skill and intelli- 

 gence, can eradication of the evil be hoped for. The skill and 

 intelligence which will enable the children to siicceed where their 

 parents have failed, will not be developed by schooling limited 



