Page:The empire and the century.djvu/585

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542
NATIVE QUESTION IN SOUTH AFRICA

and have imposed restrictions and burdens upon the subdued So it was that in South Africa the aboriginals, after fighting to their utmost and inflicting as much havoc as they could upon the invader, succumbed to superior intelligence and came under civilized law and order. The result was to revolutionize their mode of living, and to place a limit upon their spheres of tribal occupation.

The effects of civilization and Christianity in course of time made it manifest to the ruling race that, under the influence of control and guidance, the savages were gently emerging from their barbarous state and putting on the garb of intelligence. By easy stages this process has been going on, until at the present day the progress has been deepened by missionary effort into a knowledge of Christian religion, widened by education, and has established itself in a fairly regular form.

But concurrently with the growth of intelligence has followed a growth of population, lately at a great rate, in consequence of the stoppage of internecine warfare and the promotion of healthier conditions of life. This fact has tended to arrest the attention of the civilized race, and set it thinking.

It was not to be expected that the conquering European race, in view of its resolve beneficially to occupy the country, could, as its numbers increased and wants multiplied, continue to be indulgent in setting apart tracts of land for the aboriginals as they multiplied; nor, indeed, could it be deemed of advantage for an inferior race, struggling upwards, to be brought up in the notion that its only means of subsistence must be land: it narrows the vision of hopeful evolution. In any case, for practical reasons the granting of native territories has latterly been punctuated with a large full-stop; for, in effect, there are no more territories to grant in the South African Colonies, and the pause for reflection has to be taken. There is a demand for land according to the old order, and it cannot be met. Of the several alternatives suggested,