THE COUNTRY 



world except by compulsion of one sort or another; a 

 blessed and universal compulsion drives us all to toil. 

 Most of all does the child nature of the black man need 

 its beneficent pressure. Least of all men does his environ- 

 ment supply it. He can sit in the sun and drink him- 

 self stupid on pomba, as alas! millions of natives do, while 

 his wives and children easily accomplish the shallow tillage 

 which is sufficient to provide him with food and drink; 

 but where, in such an existence, are there any oppor- 

 tunities for advancement ? 



The misguided philanthropist again would insist on 

 his being allowed to remain in the absolute possession of 

 large portions of his land which should be interdicted to 

 the white settler. There are places where it would seem 

 to be advisable so to protect him, though the areas should 

 not be too large, but a real knowledge of the local con- 

 ditions is most necessary before any such arrangements are 

 made. Generally speaking, the larger the native reserva- 

 tion, the harder it proves to reach, govern or educate the 

 native, and the more strongly he intrenches himself in 

 barbarism, adding to the ignorance and evils to which 

 he is heir, those he too readily acquires from the white 

 man. 



The one thing that seems evident to every intelligent 

 friend of the native to-day is that at all costs he must be 

 made to work. Wants, new wants, must be created in him. 

 Those of his would-be friends who ignore or forget this 

 are doing what they can to make him in the end a dis- 

 possessed and perishing outcast. 



Africa cannot be for ever left to savagery, or to savage 

 men. The world needs Africa needs what Africa can 

 produce. Land-hunger among the peoples will not languish, 

 it must increase. The death-rate of the East is falling. 

 Famines and pestilence are being by science and phil- 

 anthropy restrained. Vast rich tracts of earth's surface 



