president's address. 19 



The presence of so many distinct elements in a community, 

 each with distinct aims and aspirations, might seem to have a 

 weakening effect, but with racial barriers as they exist no other 

 course appears possible. It is recognised from the beginning that 

 these are South Africa's problems, and we cannot escape them. 

 We have to face the fact of racial distinctions, and direct them 

 as seems most wise. Repression of any element is inadmissible; 

 the principle of fairness and sympathetic treatment is accepted. 



Experience hitherto has shown that, while perhaps weaken- 

 ing, the admixture of peoples is not necessarily antagonistic; 

 moreover, it applies only to the personal social side of life, not 

 to that of collective effort. Thus it obtrudes in education, 

 religion, sports, games, and the individualistic side of life gener- 

 ally, but not to the industrial and economic issues. In towns 

 separate schools exist for white and coloured, and the same clergy- 

 man may administer to a church of white adherents, to another 

 of coloured and to another of native. A distinguished visitor, 

 such as the Governor-General, would meet independently an 

 assembly of white, coloured, and native, and receive fervent expres- 

 sions of loyalty from each. On industrial and business issues 

 racialism, in theory and also largely in practice, is non-existent. 

 The individual in general occupies the sphere for which his 

 qualifications befit him. As those of the native and coloured are 

 generally lower than those of the white, differences are manifest, 

 and would appear to show racial discrimination, whereas they are 

 dictated mainly by considerations of ability. 



National Loyalty and Racial Solidarity. 



In the foregoing we have regarded the Bantu and other 

 coloured peoples only from the South African point of view, not 

 as a part of the larger world problem of the coloured races as a 

 whole in their relationship with the white. The dire results which 

 may one day arise from the conflicting interests of the white and 

 coloured have been fully expounded in works such as those of 

 Mr. Putnam Weale, "Conflict of Colour," and of Dr. Lothrop 

 Stoddard, "The Rising Tide of Colour." While no one can 

 predict with certainty how the present racial antagonisms will 

 shape themselves in the future, the conclusions these writers 

 present are sufficiently serious to merit special study in South 

 Africa. Stoddard is particularly insistent upon the fact that the 

 chief conflicts which count in history, the late war excepted, have 

 been inter- racial. He naturally assumes that differences of race 

 will determine the main conflicts in the future, and that the white 

 race, on account of its numerical weakness, may not always prove 

 to be the victor. 



There is much in support of this view, but it is also relevant 

 to suggest that, with the more enlightened and more sympathetic 

 attitude now coming over the relationships of white and coloured, 

 future conflicts will not necessarily be on racial lines, but com- 

 binations of races against combinations. The diversity of races 

 and colour represented by the combatants in the late war may not 

 be without significance in this connection. As already indicated, 



