E.—GEOGRAPHY. 135 
Afrikander population is robust and efficient. But the maintenance of 
the white supremacy and even of a white Afrikander people is doubtful. 
The population of the Union of South Africa in 1922 included 1,550,578 
Whites and 5,504,580 coloured people ; so the latter exceed the white by 
34 to 1 and are increasing the faster. The coloured race is in especial 
‘excess in Natal, where Indian coolies supply the bulk of the labour in 
agriculture, industry, and retailtrade. In the rest of the Union the coloured 
excess is that of the Negro. The white dominion may be maintained either 
by a small oligarchy managing black labour ; or by white workers remaining 
in sufficient number to keep control under a Parliamentary government. 
The oligarchic plan, which is the ideal of the Capitalists, hopes for the 
development of South Africa on the lines adopted in India until recent 
years. This system seems, however, to have little more chance of perma- 
_nence in South Africa than in India. The measures introduced to strengthen 
it led Booker Washington to condemn the native policy of parts of 
the British Empire as worse than that of the United States. The rule of 
South Africa by a minority of white men is threatened by the uprise of 
an active Negro party which, with the support of the Ethiopian Church, 
demands its full share in the government of the country. This aggressive 
South African party, largely inspired from the United States, is likely to 
increase in numbers and influence. It may be controlled so long as there 
remains in the country a large number of comfortably circumstanced 
white labourers. The fundamental difficulty in South Africa is, however, 
the position of the ‘ poor Whites’ ; they form a class who are apt to inter- 
_ breed with the Negroes and increase the percentage of half-castes. Many 
of the poorer white men have been forced to take work which is despised 
by the better class of black labourers ; and the spectre in South Africa is 
the steady replacement of white workers by Negroes and half-castes in 
the skilled occupations. One difference in South Africa between visits 
in 1893 and 1905 which impressed me as most significant was that all the 
farriery, which in the former year had been done by Whites, had passed 
to the Blacks. This process has gone so far that it threatens the existence 
of white labour in South Africa, and the Capitalist attitude to it has led to 
the alliance of the Nationalist and Labour Parties. One of the main issues 
_ in contemporary South African politics is the segregation of the Negroes 
and Asiatics. The Nationalists accept the conclusion that the white man 
cannot compete on equal terms with the natives and Asiatics in manual 
labour. The wages for white labour varies from 10s. to 30s. a day ; while 
that of a native adult varies from 6s. to 30s. a month. The pay of native 
domestic servants is the same, with the addition of food. The white 
man in South Africa cannot live on the same wages as the blacks. As the 
Negro becomes better educated and enters trade after trade, his white 
competitor must withdraw or reduce his standard of living to a level 
which involves ultimate demoralization. Some of the supporters of the 
Capitalist party admit these facts and consider the fusion of the black and 
white races at the Cape inevitable. 
The Nationalists reject this pessimistic conclusion. They recognize 
that it can only be avoided by maintaining the distinction between the two 
races, which are most liable to commingling among the poorer classes. The 
Nationalist programme therefore includes the policy of segregation, which 
is opposed by the Capitalists, on the ground that it is an anti-Capitalist 
