6 president s address. 



Complexity of Sociological Problems in South Africa. 



South Africa is a country excelling in sociological problems, 

 racial and inter-racial, national and inter-national. No other 

 country in the world has so many distinct races and nations settled 

 within its borders, and at such diverse stages of social evolution. At 

 the one extreme are the survivors of the earliest historic inhabi- 

 tants, the Bushmen, who are among the lowest of all people in 

 civilisation, and representative of the primitive communistic hunt- 

 ing stage of human development; we have also the lowly Hotten- 

 tots, still in the pastoral or cattle-rearing phase of industrial 

 evolution. The Bantus, whether as Xosas, Zulus, Swazis, Basutos, 

 Bechuanas, or other of their tribal sub-divisions, comprise about 

 two-thirds of our population of seven millions, and industrially 

 they have attained only a primitive agricultural stage. These are 

 all classed as natives, though the Bantu immigrated from the 

 north only three or four hundred years ago. The Bushmen and 

 the Hottentots are now so few in number and so intermingled with 

 the others as to call for no special consideration; our great concern 

 is with the four million Bantu, whether segregated in Reserves 

 or freely mingling with the white. 



Coloured peoples, in the narrower meaning of the term, num- 

 bered 678,146 according to the census of 1911. At the extreme 

 Southern border are the so-called Malays, comprising representa- 

 tives of the Malay Archipelago, the East Indies, and the East 

 Coast of tropical Africa, largely the descendants of imported 

 slaves. In Natal you have your own special problem of the Indian, 

 brought here under the indentured labour system. Everywhere, 

 but particularly around the urban centres, are the coloured Eur- 

 Africans, a varied admixture largely of European and native 

 blood. Finally, at the highest extreme of civilisation, are the 

 Nordic whites, mainly representative of the two European nations, 

 British and Dutch, but mingled with French; including also com- 

 munities of Germans around King William's Town, and now in 

 the South-West Protectorate as well. 



With the passing of the Act of Union in 1910 the die has 

 been cast for South Africa and, so far as can be humanly pre- 

 dicted, it will in the main retain its present geographical and 

 ethnographical features for a long time to come. We are all to 

 live together, confined within one Union — British, Dutch, Bantu, 

 Asiatic, Eur-African, and all the smaller elements -which make 

 up our population. We are to be one country, one people, all 

 South Africans, directly subservient to one Government, and also 

 with the status of partnership in the British Commonwealth of 

 Nations. The various constituents have come together, each with 

 it= own traditions and with its own racial consciousness. We 

 intermingle with difficulty and blend with reluctance; yet we have 

 to go through the melting pot, and can only speculate as to how 

 we shall emerge. It is an inspiring reflection, this building up 

 of a new nation from such heterogeneous elements, and its suc- 

 cessful realisation will demand the best efforts of all. 



