Native Life in South Africa [143]
a nuisance by advocating ideas of justice in favour of the blacks? General Botha confessed last September that the South African Government tried to, but could not, borrow more than 2,000,000 Pounds; that the Imperial Government had come to the rescue and "helped the Union out of its embarrassment with a loan of 7,000,000 Pounds" of British money. When from his seat in the Union House of Assembly the Prime Minister announced this failure, why did not these secessionists come forward and display their "paddling" capacity? What has suddenly become of them?
Is it not about time that the Empire recognized the unprofitableness, and even the ruinous policy, of these gentlemen, and that it ceased paying so much attention to those whose views are distorted by colour prejudice, whose object is to inflict unnecessary harm on the minds, bodies and spirits of loyal subjects of the Crown? One cannot help saying that if their career in this respect is not checked, their evil policy will land the Empire in a tangle of difficulties from which its rescue will require the highest statesmanship, much expenditure of treasure, if not also the shedding of blood.
We have already stated that coloured men ARE serving the Empire at the front, but mainly in capacities that do not involve their recognition. We have recently read of the trial of two coloured men at Willowmore, in the Cape Province. They were said to have expressed the view that if coloured persons are not fit to fight for the Empire "in a war originating entirely among Europeans", they could not be considered fit to drive military wagons in the same war. Recruiting of military drivers was in progress at the time, so they were charged under martial law, and sentenced to nine months, with hard labour, for obstructing the recruiting work. In this case our difficulty is that, not being a lawyer, we are not able to draw the fine distinctions between legal phrases. But to our untutored lay mind it seems that if to give expression to such logic (whereby ten drivers may think twice before enlisting) is a crime under martial law, then it should be over ten times more criminal, under the same law, for a Government to refuse the offer of service, in the same war, of 18,000 warriors and thereby barring the enlistment of a possible 80,000.
One of the best replies to colour sentimentalists which we have ever read on this subject is quoted from the `New York World' by the `Crisis' (Professor Du Bois's paper) of the same city. Says the `New York World': --
== The German Ambassador has announced to the United States that he is "unconditionally opposed" to the use of coloured troops. This is a curious prejudice on the part of the diplomatic representative of a Government that is seeking to bring Turkey into the conflict and trying to persuade the Turk to instigate a "holy war" in Egypt and India against all non-Mohammedans.
When Germany went to war with the British Empire she must have expected to fight the British Empire, and not merely a selected part of the population, the colour of whose skin happened to meet the approval of Berlin.
It is natural enough that Great Britain should bring up her Indian troops, who, by the way, are as completely identified with the Aryan race as the Prussians. But no matter what their race may be, they are part of the Empire and part of Great Britain's regular military power.
If Germany were at war with the United States her troops would have to meet our Negro Cavalry, than whom there are no better soldiers in uniform.
German denunciation of the Indian troops is as futile as German denunciation of the Japanese as "yellow-bellies". It is too late to draw the colour line in war. That line was erased more than fifty years ago by Abraham Lincoln in that noble letter to the Springfield Convention: "And there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation." ==
One South African writer to the Press had humanitarian
Is it not about time that the Empire recognized the unprofitableness, and even the ruinous policy, of these gentlemen, and that it ceased paying so much attention to those whose views are distorted by colour prejudice, whose object is to inflict unnecessary harm on the minds, bodies and spirits of loyal subjects of the Crown? One cannot help saying that if their career in this respect is not checked, their evil policy will land the Empire in a tangle of difficulties from which its rescue will require the highest statesmanship, much expenditure of treasure, if not also the shedding of blood.
We have already stated that coloured men ARE serving the Empire at the front, but mainly in capacities that do not involve their recognition. We have recently read of the trial of two coloured men at Willowmore, in the Cape Province. They were said to have expressed the view that if coloured persons are not fit to fight for the Empire "in a war originating entirely among Europeans", they could not be considered fit to drive military wagons in the same war. Recruiting of military drivers was in progress at the time, so they were charged under martial law, and sentenced to nine months, with hard labour, for obstructing the recruiting work. In this case our difficulty is that, not being a lawyer, we are not able to draw the fine distinctions between legal phrases. But to our untutored lay mind it seems that if to give expression to such logic (whereby ten drivers may think twice before enlisting) is a crime under martial law, then it should be over ten times more criminal, under the same law, for a Government to refuse the offer of service, in the same war, of 18,000 warriors and thereby barring the enlistment of a possible 80,000.
One of the best replies to colour sentimentalists which we have ever read on this subject is quoted from the `New York World' by the `Crisis' (Professor Du Bois's paper) of the same city. Says the `New York World': --
== The German Ambassador has announced to the United States that he is "unconditionally opposed" to the use of coloured troops. This is a curious prejudice on the part of the diplomatic representative of a Government that is seeking to bring Turkey into the conflict and trying to persuade the Turk to instigate a "holy war" in Egypt and India against all non-Mohammedans.
When Germany went to war with the British Empire she must have expected to fight the British Empire, and not merely a selected part of the population, the colour of whose skin happened to meet the approval of Berlin.
It is natural enough that Great Britain should bring up her Indian troops, who, by the way, are as completely identified with the Aryan race as the Prussians. But no matter what their race may be, they are part of the Empire and part of Great Britain's regular military power.
If Germany were at war with the United States her troops would have to meet our Negro Cavalry, than whom there are no better soldiers in uniform.
German denunciation of the Indian troops is as futile as German denunciation of the Japanese as "yellow-bellies". It is too late to draw the colour line in war. That line was erased more than fifty years ago by Abraham Lincoln in that noble letter to the Springfield Convention: "And there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation." ==
One South African writer to the Press had humanitarian