100 PRKSIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION E. 



11. Tlic immigration of the Native into industrial areas 



and the change in habit and in outlooh due to this 



immigration. 



The needs and demands of European trade and commerce, 



oi mines, harbours, railways, industries as well as oi homes, have 



drawn the Native towards the great urban centres. On the Keel 



alone there are a quarter of a million Native employees. At the 



iseaports they ai'e there in their thousands. All along our vast 



net-work of railways they toil. Even the meanest home boasts a 



kalir boy. He is part arid ])arcel of the great South African 



industrial machine. 



In past days the Native who came townwards always kept his 

 cables moored to his native home. He only went forth to seek 

 work when necessity or vanity or wonder constrained him to go; 

 and it was ever and always " Home " that held him and his, not 

 the compound on the mine, or the lodging at the docks, or the 

 tent by the railway, or the back-yard attached to his master's 

 kitchen. It was always " Izekaya "; for that he toiled, for that 

 he saved his money, and no day was more joyous to him than 

 that on which he set his face homewards. 



But in these later days much of this is changed. The Native, 

 now, settles down more readily to town or location life, and the 

 insistent call of homo is no longer there, or, if it is, there is but a 

 whisper of hills, and woods and streams which a night at a cinema 

 show blots out. 



Too often the ill-smelling, badly-built, fever-haunted collec- 

 tion of sods and tins and rags, so frequently met with, and which 

 we call a location (a jilace, not a home), is his permanent 

 dwelling place. 



We have already spoken of the changes going on in rural 

 areas in Native territories. What changes in life and living will 

 not locations bring about; what kind of a people will many of the 

 locations we know rear as workmen of the future? Do we wonder 

 if the Native is physically and morally beggared by living in them '^ 

 What is there in these locations to uplift or ennoble? How many 

 of them have a recreation hall, or a small library, or even the 

 natural conveniences of water and light? Then it is the worst 

 side of European life that the Native usually witnesses. The best 

 is a closed door to him. And if he were a cloddish soul it would 

 not matter much. He would be uninfluenced by what he sees. 

 But he is far otherwise. There are few races so imitative, so 

 obseiwant, so quick to see beneath the surface of things. A lead- 

 ing Natal newspaper dealing with this very condition of things 

 said of the Zulu who came down to the seaport from some far- 

 off village that in three weeks there was not much of the under- 

 world of Durban life that he did not know. The same may be 

 said of the Xosa boy who dilfts into the back-yards of 

 Johannesburg, or the slums of Capo Town. 



It is matl:er for thankfulness that the Government of the 

 Union, not ignorant of the unsatisfactory condition of so many of 

 our locations, has introduced a measure dealing with a number 



