Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 1).djvu/107

This page needs to be proofread.
  • fusion of which none of us can foretell the end, but as to

which we are all convinced that in one way or another a minority of white men will get the better of a majority of coloured men. In British South Africa the majority of coloured men is so great that the country has to be compared to India or Ceylon rather than to the Southern American States. When once the Kafir shall have learned what voting means there will be no withstanding him, should the system of voting which now prevails in the Cape Colony be extended over a South African Confederation. The Kafir is not a bad fellow. Of the black African races the South Eastern people whom we call Kafirs and Zulus are probably the best. They are not constitutionally cruel, they learn to work readily, and they save property. But they are as yet altogether deficient in that intelligence which is needed for the recognition of any political good. There can be no doubt that the condition of the race has been infinitely improved by the coming of the white man; but, were it to be put to the vote to-morrow among the Kafirs whether the white man should be driven into the sea, or retained in the country, the entire race would certainly vote for the white man's extermination. This may be natural; but it is not a decision which the white man desires or by which he intends to abide.

I will quote here a few words from an official but printed report, sent by Mr. Bowker, the late Commandant of the Frontier Mounted Police, to the Chairman of the Frontier Defence Committee in 1876, merely adding, that perhaps no one in the Cape Colony better understands the feeling