ompetition increases.
But if good and ample land can be set aside in the various territories
of spacious South Africa in which the Natives can live and move without
let or hindrance; in which they can do what work they like for
themselves and for their own people; in which they can engage, according
to their individual desires, in all kinds of trades and commerce without
the prohibition of the white man's colour-bar; in which they can earn
the wages that are governed by the laws of supply and demand only; in
which they can build up after their own fashion courts of law and
political councils for themselves; in which, _in fine_ they can live and
work out their own salvation, unhurried and unworried by strange and
impatient masters, then, surely, the Natives of South Africa will have
gained a great gain, far greater than any they can ever hope to win by
pitting their undeveloped strength against the organised resistance of
the whites.
The policy of territorial separation, which is now part of the law of
the Union of South Africa,[27] is the only policy that will make
possible a home existence for the Natives in their own homeland, for we
know that, however educated and however worthy the civilised Native may
become, he cannot hope to find a home, or to feel at home, among the
whites. Rightly or wrongly, the whites have banged, bolted and barred
their doors against the blacks, and neither moral worth nor educational
qualifications will serve to open them. But in their own areas the
Natives will have their own homes and their own home-life, without which
human existence is indeed miserable. Those among them who long for the
privilege of private ownership will be able to acquire land in freehold
in localities set aside therefor, while those who cling to the old ways
will be allowed to continue as before under their old system of communal
land tenure.
With freedom of movement and action under a minimum of European
supervision and control the Natives will, in their own areas, have full
opportunity and scope for the development of a home-civilisation of
their own along lines similar to, if not identical with, those by which
the Europeans follow their separate ways. It is a heroic plan, and it
will demand great sacrifice from both peoples, but who can doubt that
the end will be worth the effort? The Natives may in some places have to
leave the land where their ancestors are buried, and the whites will, in
many places, have
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