The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1980, 16 January 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1907.

No one acqainted with the conditions of life in the Southern States of America will he surprised at the vehement speech of Senator Tillman on the race question, when he said before the Senate (as recorded in our cablegrams yesterday), that “blood would flow like water over the race question, which was more threatening now than in 1861; and that “so long as negroes ravished white women, South Carolina would continue to lynch them.” This condition of affairs is only a more pronounced phase of what lias hitherto existed more or less acutely since the days of the abolition of slavery, for never since those days has the American forgotten altogether the feelings that existed between mastter and slave, nor have the descendants of those slaves forgotten the treatment of their ancestors. There appears to bo no desire on the part of either to “rub noses,” and the conduct of the negroes has evidently not conduced to bring about a happier feeling. If it is a fact that negroes are in the habit of molesting white women, they deserve tp > be flogged, as their forefathers were for smaller offences; but their numbers have since increased enormously, they have grown affluent as a result of their freedom, and possibly- in verification of the old adage, “Put the devil on horseback and he’ll ride to Hades,” they have not’ learned to make the best use of their improved circumstances. The natural tendency of the “nigger” is to be bounceable and dogmatic when he thinks he can be independent, and this tendency the American is not slow to resent, particularly in view of past relations, so there is little hope of the entente cordiale ever existing between them, though President Roosevelt lias lately endeavoured to set the example of amity by treating the blacks with a consideration and friendliness to which they have always hitherto been total strangers. One can admire the President for his magnanimous example, but it should not be forgotten that it is easier to be magnanimous where there are no temptations to be otherwise than it would be in the midst of those temptations, and that the people of South Carolina, who are said to suffer very bitter annoyances from the negro population, find it more difficult to tolerate the companionship of the black fellows than even the President does. Be that as it may, the negro problem has always been to the United States Government a very serious one, since the negroes were permitted to call themselves a free people. They have, as wo have said, increased in numbers, grown rich upon the plantations that were once cultivated by their ancestors as slaves, and many of them now own the plantations that Belonged to the taskmasters of a former generation. As their prosperity, lias increased, so has their arrogance and their political power, which has become a menace to the white man’s interests, because of their numbers, which have swelled into eight or ten millions, and arc still increasing rap idly. And this is the heirloom of the

si aVO traffic of a former century carried on without conditions of compulsory expropriation, for in those days tho “nigger” was gathered into the hulls of slave traders wherever tlioy cotild bo captured in South Africa, and dumped down in their hundreds upon tho plantations of tho Southorn States of America. Littlo did tho planters and slavo-doalors of those days caro about tho consoquoncos of thoir acts in future times, lor thoir only caro was Mammon, and thoir only desire an insatiable greed for riches, just as is tho caso to-day with tho roformod slavo-doalovs or tho South African colonies, who aro intent on importing Chinese labor. But ought not tho lessons afforded by tho color problem of America to bo a warning to those who could, hut would not provont tho repetition ol this unsavoury piece of history, for as sure as night follows day, tho saino incidents will be repeated as between the unmixablo races now being huddled together in that unhappy country, and when tho barricades that now surround tlioso servile masses of humanity on tho Rand aro thrown open, and thoy obtain thoir freedom, the problem will have commenced there in perhaps a more virulent form than it has ever yot shown in America, notwithstanding tho fact that wo aro told by Senator Tillman that “blood would flow like water” boforo tho problem had found a solution. Indeed that tact may but 1 have tho offoct of intensifying tho troublo, lor it is unlikely that tlio blood of all those millions will bo shed, and it would appear as though nothing far short of that tragedy will afford a permanent peace.