The covenant - James A. Michener [525]
What perplexed these leaders was the contradictory policy of the white government: 'They spend enormous sums to bring in white settlers from Russia and Germany and Poland, when they have right on their doorsteps better labor and cheaper, which they refuse to use.' John Dube, in one of these meetings, offered the statement which Nxumalo would always remember: 'The worst thing a nation can do to itself is to cultivate and maintain a supply of cheap labor. When salaries are kept down, money stops circulating, taxes bring in diminished funds, and everybody loses. The white man thinks he's hurting us when he keeps our wages low. Actually, he's hurting himself.'
At one meeting a young Swazi who had studied in London said, 'In our worst industries, the white man earns sixteen times as much as the black man doing the same kind of work. Now, I don't mean the same work. As you know, certain jobs have been denned by law as too complicated or pivotal for a black man to master. Such jobs must be held by whites only. What I mean is that whites and blacks work together, the whites doing the so-called critical work, which a schoolboy could learn in fifteen minutes, the blacks doing the manual labor, which the white could do more efficiently because he's usually better fed and stronger. Taking all industries, the white worker gets nine times the wage of a black, and they propose to build a sensible society on that basis!'
Nxumalo understood such reasoning; he would never have elucidated such thoughts himself, but when others did he approved. However, on one point he was as obtuse as the white man: when he contemplated the long future of South Africa he could not visualize any logical place for the Coloureds. The white man had stated in a hundred different laws and regulations that the Coloureds were not white; the blacks knew intuitively they could never be black. Almost never was the problem discussed; once Plaatje said after returning from London, 'The white men, if they had any sense, would embrace the Coloureds instead of importing white immigrants at great expense.'
'Should we embrace them?' Nxumalo asked.
Plaatje thought a long time, then said, 'I think not. They want to do what they call "moving up to whitehood" and would never be satisfied with doing what they would call "falling back to Kaffir status." Why distract our attention by bothering with them, when we can argue directly with the whites?'
It was from such discussions that Micah Nxumalo acquired his obsession: 'One day our boy Moses will attend the college at Fort Hare.' To that end he terminated his own practical education; no longer would he waste his few rand by attending the secret meetings in Johannesburg. That money would be saved for the boy. He went to the Van Doorns, asking them to help toward the fees Moses would have to pay, but Detleef growled, 'He needs no further schooling, he has a job here,' and the meager funds that Micah could accumulate were inadequate for so bold a venture, and the dream of sending a black lad from Vrymeer to college vanished.
But not the dream of learning: 'What you must do, Moses, is read the books that educated men read. You must associate with men who have traveled to America and Europe, and you must listen to what they say. Most of all, son, you must get off this farm. You were not meant to be a peasant.'
Using some of the money he had saved, he returned to his friends in Johannesburg and asked them for books that would start his gifted son on the right track. They gave him one book by Marcus Garvey, the