Africa, the employers of much labour and the would-be employers of more, talk of the English vagrancy laws,—alleging that these Kafirs are vagrants, and should be treated as vagrants would be treated in England;—as though the law in England compelled any man to work who had means of living without work. The law in England will not make the Duke of work; nor will it make Hodge work if Hodge has 2s. a day of his own to live on and behaves himself.
This cry as to labour and the want of labour, is in truth a question of wages. A farmer in England will too often feel that the little profit of his farm is being carried away by that extra 2s. a week which the state of the labour market compels him to pay to his workmen. The rise of wages among the coloured people in South Africa has been much quicker than it ever was in England. In parts of Natal a Zulu may still be hired for his diet of Indian corn and 7s. a month. In Kafraria, about King Williamstown, men were earning 2s. 6d. a day when I was there. I have seen coloured labourers earning 4s. 6d. a day for the simple duty of washing wool. All this has to equalize itself, and while it is doing so, of course there is difficulty. The white man thinks that the solution of the difficulty should be left to him. It is disparaging to his pride that the black man should be so far master of the situation as to be able to fix his own wages.
In the meantime, however, the matter is fixed. The work is done by black men. They plough, they reap; they herd and shear the sheep; they drive the oxen; they load the waggons; they carry the bricks; they draw the water; they hew the wood; they brush the clothes; they clean the boots;
