PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 7 



Fortunately we have for the most part come together volun- 

 tarily, with practically equal rights, or absence of rights, of 

 occupancy. The members of no group can sustain a priority claim 

 of ownership to the country, nor has there been much aggressive 

 subjugation by conquest. The Bushmen alone are the original 

 inhabitants, the Hottentots following later. But as communities 

 both of these have succumbed before later arrivals, their primitive 

 nature and mode of life rendering them incapable of adaptation to 

 the new conditions. The salient features of the later introductions 

 are well known and only call for the briefest summary. The 

 Portuguese first discovered the Cape at the end of the fifteenth 

 century, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was 

 visited by Dutch and English vessels on their way to the East 

 Indies, the first Dutch occupancy under Governor Jan Van Riebeek 

 taking place in 1652. Malays were first imported as slaves in 

 1654 and Negroes from the Guinea Coast in 1658. One hundred 

 and sixty-four refugee Huguenots arrived between 1688 and 1700. 

 The census of the Dutch centenary of Occupation in 1752 showed 

 but 5,510 Europeans and 6,279 slaves. The British took the Cape 

 in 1795, restored it in 1803, and finally occupied it in 1806. In 

 1820 nearly 4,000 British settlers arrived and spread over the 

 Eastern Province. Their centenary we in Grahamstown have just 

 been worthily celebrating. Emancipation of slaves took place in 

 1834. Consequent upon the Great Trek, the Boers established a 

 republic in Natal in 1839 and Pietermaritzburg was founded; they 

 partly trekked out again in 1842, and Natal remained largely 

 British.' Indian labour was first introduced in 1858, and in 1911 

 there were 133,439 Asiatics to 98,114 Europeans. At first the 

 few Dutch remained around Cape Town, but gradually numbers 

 spread northwards and eastwards, their extension taking the form 

 of organised treks in the thirties, and later the founding of the 

 Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Everywhere Dutch and 

 English came into contact with the various Bantu tribes who had 

 come down from the north in successive waves, and were living 

 in a state of inter-tribal warfare. Numerous conflicts and much 

 negotiation resulted from the clash, extending almost to the 

 present day, and the names of many distinguished tribal leaders 

 emerge — Tshaka, Dingaan, Panda, Cetewayo, Moshesh, Mosele- 

 katse, Lobengula, Dinizulu and Kama. Within the present cen- 

 tury the numerous coiiflicting elements may be held to have settled 

 down in peaceable occupation of the countrv, and the Act of 

 Union has consolidated them for good and all. 



The vastness of the sociological problems presented by this 

 unique admixture of people must appeal to all. We may well ask 

 how such a varied assemblage of races and nations can live together 

 in harmony and good-will, each group for the good of itself and 

 for the good of the whole. For in these days of easy communica- 

 tion no part of a population can live unto itself; there are inter- 

 relationships which can not be avoided. It can hardly be expected 

 that peoples differing racially and at different stages of social 

 evolution can live side by side with the same harmony as obtains 



