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with the Imperial Government that the administrative and commercial transactions should be kept in "water-tight compartments." That the settlers should have been compelled to insist upon it is in itself evidencethat all was not well in Rhodesia.

It is fairly evident that Miss Markham was unable to give the time and study to Rhodesian questions which she gave with such excellent results to other parts of South Africa. Otherwise we should have had a chapter or two upon the native question, which, if it had been probed deeply, would have given a key to some of the "amazing things" which are still being done in Rhodesia. Those 800,000 natives without a king to whom they can give allegiance, the subjects of no organized Power, outcasts in their own country, wanderers upon the face of the earth, are not the least interesting features of Mashonaland and Matabeleland. The sound wisdom, the temperate judgment, the warm appreciation of native problems in the Union territories, which Miss Markham displays in The South African Scene, emphasize what public opinion has lost through the inability of this gifted author to live a few weeks among the scattered Matabele and Mashona tribes.

The South African Society.

THE South African Society, which was founded in April, 1914, as the result of a meeting convened in December, 1913, by the Rev. Saul Solomon and Professor Arnold Wynne, acting upon the suggestion of Mr. R. C. Hawkin, the Secretary of the Eighty Club, held its first annual meeting at Cape Town on May 11 last. Senator Colonel W. E. M. Stanford, the President, was in the chair and the first Annual Report was presented. From it we learn that the number of Hon. Vice-Presidents include the Hon. W. P. Schreiner, K.C., C.M.G., High Commissioner in London; Mr. Maurice S. Evans, C.M.G., Durban; Senator the Hon. T. L. Schreiner of Cape Town, and M. E. Jacottet of Basutoland.

The Report refers to the native delegation which visited England last year in connexion with the Natives' Land Act of 1914, and states that "the Committee is keeping the Natives' Land Act before it to render such assistance as may be required, so that the best interests of the people in the Union may be promoted by the further legislation promised."

Another paragraph in the Report records that "in November the Committee had the pleasure of meeting the Rev. J. H. Harris of London." The Committee rendered what assistance it could, and, on Mr. Harris' return, after hearing what he had been able to do, passed certain resolutions. in regard to the question of Native Reserves in Rhodesia and the provision of sufficient unalienated land for the future as well as the present needs of the native population.

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Another resolution stated that it was desirable that Native Councils should be established in Rhodesia as far as practicable on the lines of the existing Transkei Council System."

During the year the Society has temporarily lost its Treasurer, and later its Secretary, who left to take up military service. The Rev. R. Balmforth

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MR. J. S. MOFFAT, C.M.G., OF CAPE TOWN (SON OF ROBERT MOFFAT), WHO RECENTLY ATTAINED HIS EIGHTIETH YEAR.

and Mr. William Hay have been appointed Treasurer and Secretary respectively pro tem.

In his speech at the Annual Meeting Colonel Stanford said that while their beginnings as a Society were small, he thought that during the year it had justified its existence and done useful work. In regard to the Natives' Land Act, it was their duty to hold a watching brief and exercise a moderat

ing and, he hoped, a useful influence when grievances were brought to their notice.

The President mentioned that a Society similar to theirs was working in Natal and another, he believed, in Johannesburg. It would be a good thing, he thought, to get into touch with these Societies and have a common platform on which they could work together.

Amongst the members appointed to the Committee we notice the name of Mr. Leland Buxton, the youngest son of the President of the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, who is now resident in Cape Town.

The War and the Colour Problem.

AMONG the many indirect results which will arise out of the present terrific upheaval of the nations, the problem of colour will undoubtedly present itself in an entirely new light after the war. The systematic employment of African troops, by our French Allies, from Senegal, Algeria, etc., to take 'part in the great struggle; the presence of our Indian troops fighting alongside our own men and sharing in their perils and their glory; the alliance of Japan with the European nations who are opposing the might of Germany; all these are striking facts which have been brought about by the necessity. of the time, which cannot fail to modify men's views on the alleged inferiority of the black, brown and yellow races.

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The objections to the employment of soldiers of another colour along with white troops are obvious; it might appear to open the door to standards and practices alien to those of "civilized" warfare, but this argument has now been rendered absurd by the recent astounding revelations of the depths of barbarity to which a nation which never tires of boasting of its 'culture" and its intellectual superiority to all other nations, can sink, by stooping to acts which, in Lord Kitchener's words, "would vie with the barbarous savagery of the Dervishes of the Sudan." Moreover, the misgivings of those who shrink from the idea of allowing coloured troops to engage in a white man's war must, in most cases, have been over-ridden by the tremendous urgency of the crisis and the life and death character of the struggle. In South Africa the natives, forgetting their grievances against the Government, have offered their services with enthusiasm to their country; at the outset of the war a packed meeting of coloured citizens of Cape Town was held to express their loyalty to the King and their patriotic support of the Government at the crisis, as a result of which coloured volunteers from all parts of the Union came forward, and a definite offer was made to the Government by Dr. Rubusana of a corps of 5,000 natives for active service in German South West Africa. It is true that the Government declined the offer on the ground that the war was a European war, but this

decision was received with regret and even resentment by the coloured people. The whole aspect of the question is surely changed when the men of colour, far from being forced to fight for their "masters" like dumb driven cattle, are intelligent men who press forward eager to share in the defence of the Empire whose benefits they enjoy, against the arrogant aggressor whose triumph would mean misery and loss of freedom for white and black alike.

An Indian writer, in an American magazine points out that the mere employment of black and brown troops on European soil implies “a revolution in the attitude of white to coloured races," and reminds us that while in the Boer war the proposal made in high quarters to employ Indian troops. was at once rejected, within fifteen years of that time over 200,000 Indian soldiers are fighting in Europe, Africa and Asia side by side with British, French and Belgian, and also with African troops.

"The attitude that the French, British, Belgian and Russian peoples are assuming towards the dark-skinned men who are helping them is that of a comrade for a comrade. The life and death struggle in which Europeans are at present engaged has obliterated for the nonce and, let us hope, for ever, the old feeling of superiority and inferiority. Fighting shoulder to shoulder they are realizing that they have a community of interest which they never comprehended before."

So also the Report of the London Missionary Society, in its references to the effect of the war upon Indian Missions, remar's :

"The new comradeship produced by the co-operation of Indian troops in France will do something-perhaps very much-to sweep away that racial feeling which always seemed to bar acceptance of the missionary's message."

Thus out of this huge evil good may come. A recent writer in the Commonwealth expresses confidence that the white assumption of supremacy and the right to exploit men of another colour now stands condemned and must go.

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'Neither Japan nor India will forget, after the war, the position that we gave them under the pressure of the war. They possess an equal racial dignity and worth.”

But he goes on to assert that British arrogance, and the demand for special privilege of a higher race, is deeply rooted in Englishmen and has coloured our conduct all over the world. There is much dross, he says, to the consumed. In a similar sense a pamphlet published in connexion with the Laymen's Missionary Movement draws attention to the urgency with which the race and colour problem will present itself after the war, as one which may, not improbably, dwarf all others in importance :

"The voluntary participation of Japan and India in a European war has greatly altered the whole aspect of the problem and given it a new

urgency. Europe will be forced to find some other basis of relationship with Asiatic peoples than that of friendly and beneficent superiority. The complexity of the problem can hardly be exaggerated. But here again we are convinced that no satisfactory or ultimate solution will be found, except the problem be approached with the recognition of the essential brotherhood of the human race, and with the conviction that each nation has its unique part to fulfil in building the City of God."

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THIS Blue Book illustrates in a striking way the support which the Mother Country has received in its time of need from British subjects of many races and colours in the Empire, and the perusal of the despatches must be a source of encouragement and satisfaction to all, and not least to members of our Society. There are many remarkable instances of assistance rendered by native tribes. The British Indians in Cape Town sent over £50 through the High Commissioner for the Red Cross Fund with an expression of loyalty and "their greatest admiration for their fellow-countrymen who are fighting on the Continent." Chief Khama and the Bamangwato people of Central

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