the Cape Colony. The natives have been left practically to themselves :—not altogether, because there are now a small number (73) of native schools at work; but this effort is too slight to produce any effect as yet upon the solid mass of Kafirdom against which it is directed. Considered only as a means of governing the natives, the Natal administration has been successful, for, with the exception of the Hlubi trouble, there has been no serious outbreak among the Kafirs since Natal was constituted a separate government. But now, in the view of the experience of the last ten years, in view, that is to say, of the very rapid growth of the Kafir population in the colony, the question is being raised whether it is enough merely to govern without civilising. This question constitutes what I have termed the "problem" of Natal.

We will take the figures as Mr Pearson gives them. In 1863 the European element constituted one-seventh of the population of the colony, in 1891 it constituted only one-twelfth; and again, in 1879, the year in which the Zulu war broke out, there were 319,934 Kafirs in Natal, in 1891 there were 455,983 (Note 20).

Making due allowance for the undoubted fact that this increase is very largely due to immigration, the figures are still sufficiently significant. And what applies to Natal applies also to South Africa generally.

Let us take the fact of the Bantu increase as Mr Theal states it:

"That the Bantu population in South Africa from the Limpopo to the sea has trebled itself by natural increase alone within fifty years, is asserting what must be far below the real rate of growth."

The chief causes of this rapid increase are disclosed by a very interesting enquiry initiated by the Native Department of the Cape Government in 1855. A circular containing a series of questions was distributed among the * Appendix to "The Republics" (" History of South Africa ").

magistrates, missionaries, and traders. The collective evidence of these authorities attributes the increase to the "controlling power of the civilised Governments" which has removed certain ancient checks on population, such as tribal wars and feuds, and executions on charge of witchcraft, and lessened the action of others, such as "ignorance of medicine" and "uncertainty of food supplies." At the same time, most of these authorities are of opinion that the present rate of increase will not be maintained in the future. They indicate that already certain new checks are coming into operation. The most important of these new checks are:

(a) The rapid limitation of the food supply which can be produced by the primitive methods of cultivation practised by the Kafirs, and

(b) The adoption of European dress and manners. This last introduces a higher standard of comfort, a recognised check on indiscriminate reproduction; and also appears to slightly deteriorate the physique of the South African native.

Still, there is no doubt that the Bantu are increasing very rapidly in South Africa; and the broad fact remains, that in South Africa the Europeans must be prepared to share the country with the coloured races, instead of exclusively occupying it as they have done in North America and Australia.

And if this is so, the question of native education becomes especially important.

What, then, is being done in South Africa to educate the native, to make him a civilised being, to fit him, in short, for this partnership with the European? As I have already said, in Natal there has been no serious effort made in this direction. No effort has been made in the Native Territories, nor in the Republics. Experience shows that, in order to produce any permanent results, two conditions are necessary. There must be an efficient machinery for educating the young, and there

must be a sufficient European background to prevent the civilised native from falling back into barbarism. The only part of South Africa where these conditions are at all realised as yet are some districts of the Cape Colony. It is to the Cape Colony, therefore, that we must go, if we would learn what has been already achieved in this direction, and what results may be expected in the future.

In the Cape Colony an extensive and efficient machinery for native education has been at work for many years past. From a report of the Superintendent-General of Education (Sir Langham Dale), published in 1883, we learn that, in the preceding year there were 396 mission schools with an attendance of 44,307; 226 aborigines' day schools with an attendance of 13,817, and 21 boarding and trade schools with 2519 pupils. It should also be added that about one-third of the Annual Education Grant (amounting in 1889 to £85,000) is appropriated to the purposes of native education.

Of all these native schools and institutions, Lovedale is the most remarkable; and a record of the work done at Lovedale will give some insight into both the methods pursued and the results attained by the native educator.

In the same report it is stated that there were 300 pupils at Lovedale, and that the yearly turnover was £15,000. There is a college department in which native clergy and teachers are trained; there are workshops where young men are taught bookbinding, printing, and smiths' and carpenters' work, and where young women are taught sewing and laundress work; and there is an elementary school for boys and girls. As evidence of the reality of the trade instruction given at Lovedale, the fact is recorded that the work of thirty-five apprentices for one year realised the sum of £2200.

Writing on the general question of native education -a question which has been warmly debated at the Cape

-the Superintendent-General of Education says, in a supplementary report issued in the following year, that the supporters of native education "appeal to such facts. as the large interchange among natives of letters passing through the post-office; of the utilisation of educated natives as carriers of letters, telegrams, and parcels; of the hundreds who fill responsible posts as clerks, interpreters, school-masters, sewing-mistresses, and of the still larger number engaged in industrial pursuits, as carpenters, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, wagon-makers, shoemakers, printers, sailmakers, saddlers, etc., earning good wages, and helping to spread civilisation among their own people." Among the opponents of native education he finds "conflicting opinions." "On the one hand," he says, "the schools are abused as worthless, and educated natives decried; on the other hand, I find it affirmed that the aborigines are getting a better education than the white people, and that the native apprentices from the trade schools become successful rivals in industrial employments."

To clench the argument I have made some extracts from the South African Circular issued by the Emigrants' Information Office in October 1894. After saying that the bulk of the labour employed, both in agriculture and in mining, is supplied by the natives, the Circular continues, under the heading " Mechanics "

"It should be remembered that large numbers of Malays and other coloured men, in all parts of Cape Colony, now compete with whites as skilled mechanics at lower wages.

Nearly all the reports received (from various commercial centres) state either that none but natives are employed, or, that . . . if Europeans are employed the supply is sufficient.

"In the Transkei Europeans receive 10s. to 15s. a day, but they are rarely employed . . ."

This is very practical and conclusive evidence of the value of native education at the Cape.

We will now enlarge the area of our observations once again, and pass from a consideration of the growth of the Bantu population to the wider question of the ultimate numerical relationship between the higher and lower races raised by the late Mr Pearson, who was for many years Minister of Education in Victoria, in his work entitled "National Life and Character: a Forecast."

Mr Pearson's forecast depends upon two main propositions.

1. The lower races will in the future increase at so disproportionate a rate (as compared with the white populations) as ultimately to predominate over the higher races.

2. The stationary condition of society to which the higher races are to be thus reduced will involve a general deterioration of national life and character.

The arguments by which Mr Pearson seeks to establish the first of these two propositions are contained in the chapter on "The Unchangeable Limits of the Higher Races." He points out that, with the exception of small acquisitions, such as that of the Mediterranean seaboard of Africa by France, and of Western Turkestan by Russia, the white races are not likely to add any considerable territories to those which they already occupy. From the evidence collected on this head Mr Pearson concludes that "by far the most fertile parts of the earth, and [those] which either are or are bound to be the most populous," cannot possibly be the homes of any of the higher races. while the dense yellow populations of China, India, Japan, and the Malay Archipelago, the black populations of Central and Southern Africa, the negroes of the United States, and the Indians of Central and South America, are bound to multiply with an ever-increasing rapidity. And thus, in Mr Pearson's words—

Mean

"The day will come, and perhaps is not far distant, when the European observer will look round to see the globe girdled with a continuous zone of the black and