A PLEA FOR THE NATIVE 413 



inexhaustible patience of the teacher is not quite worn out, 

 the modest financial resources at his command certainly are. 

 Forced labour in Congo land means the bloodiest sort of 

 slavery. Under its regime the native population has 

 decreased. Forced labour in Portuguese East Africa is 

 worked on a system but little in advance of that obtaining 

 three hundred years ago. Progress for the native, there, is 

 quite impossible. No account whatever is taken of him. 

 He exists for the benefit of the white colonist only. But 

 the declared aim and policy of the English and German 

 governments is manifestly different. True, they are no 

 mere philanthropists. The country they have acquired 

 must pay its way, or ruin awaits both white and black, but 

 theoretically both have realized that Africa can only be 

 prosperous as the White and Black succeed, together. 



The Germans seem to have sat down and thought out the 

 problem confronting them. They act on a plan ; they govern 

 on a system. Englishmen are apt to criticize German methods 

 as being hampered by too much system, too much red tape. 

 This may be so, but if there is too much system in German 

 territory, there is surely too little across the border. The 

 fertile source of evil and inefficiency there, has been the 

 evident lack of one settled policy. Governors, laws, regu- 

 lations, policies all change continually. Native tribes 

 are moved from one location to another. Farmers are 

 invited to come and till a new land of promise. But the 

 tribes are uncertain of the tenure of their grazing lands, 

 and the maddened farmer cannot get a title to his farm. 



One year sees one policy declared, the next sees this 

 overthrown, and something new promised. Is the country 

 to be a game reserve ? Is it to be a native reserve ? Is it 

 to be an East Indian reserve? Are the Boers to have it, 

 or is it reserved for Englishmen ? No land can present a 

 longer list of problems to the statesman or the missionary, 

 and it is hard to believe that as yet there has been formulated 



