Native Life in South Africa [142]
a coloured man must not raise his hand against a white man if there is to be any law or order in either India, Africa, or any part of the Empire where the white man rules over a large concourse of coloured people. In South Africa it will mean that the Natives will secure pictures of whites being chased by coloured men, and who knows what harm such pictures may do? That France is employing coloured troops is no excuse. Two blacks in any sense do not make a white. The employment of native troops against Germany will be a hard blow on the prestige of the white man. ==
These emotionalists urge the Imperialists against the use of black warriors for the simple reason that it would give them (the emotionalists) "a shock". So that the agony of British troops and the anxiety of British wives and mothers is not to be lessened, nor the perils of non-combatants greatly minimized, or the war hastened by a decisive concentration of the Empire's forces on the battlefield, because of the "shock" it would give the emotionalists for black to fight against white. The common-sense view would show the advantage in permitting all subjects, including the coloured races of South Africa, to take part in the struggle and thus enable the authorities to place more men on the Continent, instead of sending drafts of Imperial troops to take the places of men at the outposts of the Empire, who are disqualified solely by their colour.
Last New Year the author received a letter from a well-known British mother conveying her well-wishes besides the following moving particulars: --
== We are almost beside ourselves with grief over this awful war. My young nephew has been home on a nine days' holiday at Christmas and he has now returned to the front. He has been awarded the D.S.O. for blowing up a bridge and so delaying the Germans in the march upon Paris. My cousin, Mrs. ----, has lost her two only sons -- both killed on the same day -- December 21. Besides other English friends and relatives fighting on the British side, I have also a young German cousin fighting on the other side. He has been so badly wounded in his throat that the vocal chords have received such an injury as to lead to the loss of his voice, and his career as a barrister is probably at an end. His poor mother is a widow and has only one other son, who is very delicate. ==
The writer has during the past six months come across instances of the loss of an only son, but all these agonies count as nothing to your colourphobic emotionalists, who must, at any price, be spared their "shock" regardless of the sufferings of others. Now ask these men what they would offer the Empire as a substitute for the coloured troops whose employment against the enemy gives them "the shock", and you will find that they have nothing to offer but their colour prejudice.
What, for instance, could the leader-writer of the `East Rand Express' offer to the Empire in place of the generous help rendered to it by the Maharajah of Mysore, a lad of only eighteen years of age, who besides the services of his men gave the "trifle" of 330,000 Pounds, or in place of the present of the Nizam of Hyderabad, who contributed 396,000 Pounds towards the cost of the Hyderabad contingent; or the Maharajah Scindia of Gwalior, who handed to King George, as a Christmas present for the troops, a "tiny fleet" of forty-one motor-ambulances, four motor-cars for officers, five motor-lorries and repair wagons, and ten motor-cycles; or to come nearer home, and to deal with a more modest gift, the two hundred bullocks which Chief Molala Mankuroane, near Kimberley, gave General Botha to feed the Union troops?
And when these liberal sacrifices are made by black men for the safety of the Empire, INCLUDING BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA, one is constrained to ask: Where are those loud-mouthed pen-men who, possessed of more pretension than foresight, wrote bombastic articles in the Transvaal Press before the war, threatening that "South Africa will cut the painter", and "paddle her own canoe", if men and women in Europe made themselves
These emotionalists urge the Imperialists against the use of black warriors for the simple reason that it would give them (the emotionalists) "a shock". So that the agony of British troops and the anxiety of British wives and mothers is not to be lessened, nor the perils of non-combatants greatly minimized, or the war hastened by a decisive concentration of the Empire's forces on the battlefield, because of the "shock" it would give the emotionalists for black to fight against white. The common-sense view would show the advantage in permitting all subjects, including the coloured races of South Africa, to take part in the struggle and thus enable the authorities to place more men on the Continent, instead of sending drafts of Imperial troops to take the places of men at the outposts of the Empire, who are disqualified solely by their colour.
Last New Year the author received a letter from a well-known British mother conveying her well-wishes besides the following moving particulars: --
== We are almost beside ourselves with grief over this awful war. My young nephew has been home on a nine days' holiday at Christmas and he has now returned to the front. He has been awarded the D.S.O. for blowing up a bridge and so delaying the Germans in the march upon Paris. My cousin, Mrs. ----, has lost her two only sons -- both killed on the same day -- December 21. Besides other English friends and relatives fighting on the British side, I have also a young German cousin fighting on the other side. He has been so badly wounded in his throat that the vocal chords have received such an injury as to lead to the loss of his voice, and his career as a barrister is probably at an end. His poor mother is a widow and has only one other son, who is very delicate. ==
The writer has during the past six months come across instances of the loss of an only son, but all these agonies count as nothing to your colourphobic emotionalists, who must, at any price, be spared their "shock" regardless of the sufferings of others. Now ask these men what they would offer the Empire as a substitute for the coloured troops whose employment against the enemy gives them "the shock", and you will find that they have nothing to offer but their colour prejudice.
What, for instance, could the leader-writer of the `East Rand Express' offer to the Empire in place of the generous help rendered to it by the Maharajah of Mysore, a lad of only eighteen years of age, who besides the services of his men gave the "trifle" of 330,000 Pounds, or in place of the present of the Nizam of Hyderabad, who contributed 396,000 Pounds towards the cost of the Hyderabad contingent; or the Maharajah Scindia of Gwalior, who handed to King George, as a Christmas present for the troops, a "tiny fleet" of forty-one motor-ambulances, four motor-cars for officers, five motor-lorries and repair wagons, and ten motor-cycles; or to come nearer home, and to deal with a more modest gift, the two hundred bullocks which Chief Molala Mankuroane, near Kimberley, gave General Botha to feed the Union troops?
And when these liberal sacrifices are made by black men for the safety of the Empire, INCLUDING BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA, one is constrained to ask: Where are those loud-mouthed pen-men who, possessed of more pretension than foresight, wrote bombastic articles in the Transvaal Press before the war, threatening that "South Africa will cut the painter", and "paddle her own canoe", if men and women in Europe made themselves