president's address. 27 



aims at making his lot more bearable; but it is without permanent 

 eugenic value, indeed, unless wisely administered, it may encourage 

 degeneracy, by affording the means of bringing into being others 

 of like character, able to continue the bad stock. Social sentiment 

 has not yet reached the stage where it will permit of measures for 

 the physical elimination of the undesirable. The reclamation here 

 advocated is concerned with the birthright of those having a real 

 potential value to South Africa. 



There is some reason to hope that the indigent white will 

 insensibly disappear as a special class. If the account of the 

 conditions under which he has been produced be correct, namely, 

 the hard pioneering stage in the development of South Africa, then 

 with the improved conditions now prevalent he ought gradually 

 to be absorbed. The circumstances which produced him no longer 

 exist and, especially if given a new start, all but those inefficient 

 by Nature should recover. The new agricultural and industrial 

 development of South Africa carries with it the call for this 

 regenerated class. Everywhere is the growing demand for efficient 

 whites. Immigration is good and is immediate in its returns, but 

 the recovery of one's own carries a higher obligation. Farmers 

 demand efficient whites for their intensive agriculture and high 

 pastoral attainments, industrialism calls for a high level of pro- 

 duction only possible from efficients. 



A New South African Nationalism. 



Since Union a new nationalism has been slowly dawning over 

 South Africa, and finds its best exponents in the leaders of the 

 political parties, and also in contributions to recent South African 

 literature. But the movement is largely apart from politics, and 

 indeed, is opposed to them whenever they appear detrimental to 

 the true interests of the country. The aspiration has found an 

 expression in the fusion of two of the political parties, their 

 hitherto slightly divergent interests now being subordinated to 

 what they conceive to be the common good. The movement is a 

 unifying one, but is not exclusive of the old nationalism. Rele- 

 gating the old to the background, it is one to which the peoples 

 of both nations can conform. 



One of the most potent influences making for this new 

 development is the experience of the younger generation overseas 

 during the war. Just as the dweller in any country never fully 

 realises what it is to be a member of his nation until he travels, 

 or comes into personal contact with the members of other nations, 

 so the South African, whether of British or Dutch descent, never 

 fully experienced his own nationality until he went abroad. In 

 contact with others he realised for the first time that he was South 

 African ; his full national consciousness was born in him and he 

 was inspired by it. Returning he is infused with this new sense 

 and with a devotion to South Africa as South Africa, and a deter- 

 mination to devote his best powers to her welfare. England as 

 the centre of the British Commonwealth of Nations he views 

 through the eyes of South Africa, not as the new arrival who 

 regards South Africa through the eyes of the country he has left. 



5 



