22 president's address. 



never existed in the Garden Colony. It is a problem highly 

 specific in its nature, and its solution appeals to the geneticist 

 rather than to the anthropologist. Had the question been one 

 concerned with the improvement of domestic stock it would have 

 been submitted to him forthwith; but as a problem in human 

 welfare, it has been relegated to the politician and the philan- 

 thropist. 



In his experimental breeding work with animals the geneticist 

 is impressed with the permanency of the fundamental cnaracier- 

 istics of a race, and at the same time with their plasticity in the 

 individual as a result of environmental influences. He is well 

 versed in Galton's phrase: "Nature and Nurture," end is accus- 

 tomed to contrast hereditary and acquired characteristics. As a 

 working basis he proceeds on the assumption that acquired modi- 

 fications are non-transmissible, and that each generation starts 

 where its predecessors began, not where they left off. The germ 

 plasm remains continuous and unalterable, and individual attain- 

 ments are for the generation only. 



In approaching the poor white question the geneticist first 

 enquires as to the nature of the original material from which the 

 class has come. From this he can ascertain to what degree the 

 degenerate condition of to-day is evidence of an originally retro- 

 gressive nature, or to what extent it has been impressed by force 

 of circumstances. If primarily degenerate his science can offer 

 no encouragement; the individual is by nature incapable of fitting 

 into the complexities of modern life, and can only exist on support 

 from others or under some simpler state of society not yet evolved. 

 If, however, the degeneracy be the result of circumstances there is 

 hope for recovery; the blood is good, but the chances have been 

 against it. 



Historically, there is no uncertainty in estimating the socio- 

 logical value of the original stock from which the class of indigent 

 white has come. It is a derivative from two of the most virile 

 nations of Europe, the industrious, adventurous, sea-faring Dutch 

 and British. As already seen, the Dutch followed in the wake 

 of Van Riebeek, mostly from 1652 to 1806. They were largely 

 soldiers, sailors, artisans, farmers and servants with a leavening 

 of the administrative, commercial, and professional classes. In 

 any numbers the British arrived from 1795, when they first took 

 over Cape Town, and were much of the same types, the purely 

 settler class predominating in the last century, notably the four 

 thousand 1820 settlers in the Eastern Province. On the whole 

 the immigrants may be held to have been no better and no worse 

 eugenically than the corresponding classes of their time in Holland 

 and Britain, the descendants of whom make, up the two nations 

 to-day, while the sturdy qualities of independence and adventure 

 were probably above the average. Writing in despatches of the 

 men who took part in the Great Trek of 1836-37, the Governor, 

 Sir Benjamin D'Urban, describes them as "brave, patient, indus- 

 trious, orderly, and religious people; the cultivators, defenders, 

 and tax contributors of the country." 



