Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/265

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is ours, inalienable, a God-given birthright. We do not begrudge others a fair share in its treasures, but in so doing we do not propose to suffer our inalienable rights to be encroached upon. More than is adequate and just to our reasonable progress and well-being we do not ask, but that we demand with all the strength of our being." Continuing, he said that he did not consider the natives were being treated fairly by the government. In some respects they were subjected to "an intolerable state of slavery." They were denied a voice in the country's government, even in legislation bearing upon their own life and people. They were fettered by pass laws, while illiterate men who could scarcely writes their names, and whose knowledge of the world's history was limited "to the bare kopjes of their own backveld," were entrusted with the power of governing the natives and their land. The government of the land granted to Indians, Chinese, Syrians, and other such races, regardless of character, an unrestricted liberty to travel, to trade, and to purchase land, while they (the natives) were denied all such privileges. (Applause.)



Monday, March 10.—Johannesburg is possibly the most prosperous town in the world. There are six or seven thousand English and American miners employed on the Rand, or gold reef, which is fifty miles long and one mile wide. Johannesburg is the centre of this great gold district, and the white miners make big wages; they are all either foremen or mine con-