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Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1987, 24 January 1907, Page 1

AMERICA’S BLACK PROBLEM. By Burt Kennedy. The difficulties presented by tlio negro question in the United States oun only ho properly grasped by the white mail who has travelled. An fiiiglishman who has not really travelled can have but liltle conception of it, oven though he be wise enough to have got into England’s Parliament. And here at the beginning I may as well state the fact that the negro question in America is exactly as the negro question in South Africa. And in considering it, it is as well to consider it jointly as it affects Englishmen and Americans. ~

t lost. It is but a question of who shall dominate! —the white man or tho negro. Twist it lion; you will, this is tlic issue. The most ignorant or dishonest member of Parliament, or member of Congress, may fog this issue for the purpose of vole-catching —hut the issue still remains. 1 well know that it is the dream of some men that the world will eventually he inhabited by a wonderful fused race. I’ve got this dream myself. Put though the future is going to he the grainiest time that has ever happened, it is still as well to think a little of the present. It is not business to neglect the cabin one is at present living in because of being lost iu dreams concerning the magical palace which someone else will enjoy. “What has posterity done for us?” i'll is hull, made by the famous Sir Hoyle Koclie, contains more common horse sense wisdom than half the wisest proverbs. Tho negro must either bo the servant or tlie master of the white man. Vo 11 can have it which way you like. The races are too far apart either to blend or to live together on a plane of equality. Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that the negro is the equal in the mental sense to tho white. liven then it would be impossible for them to live together on an equal plane, because of the tremendous difference in temperament and trend of ideas that lies between them. The negro is a different man in every way from the white man. His body is different, his organs are different, even liis hone formation is different. It ought not he necessary to emphasise this obvious fact, but it is made necessary through the going-on of mischievous white idiots, who are members either of Parliament or Congress. A.nd as for this foolish man-and-brotlier talk, the only comment I can make upon it is to state tho fact that no white man who knows the negro ever indulges in it. It is inthe facts, and by party politicians who strive to keep in power by the nouns of any knavery, lion ever treacherous and wicked.

I am not saying tliat the negroes cannot produce groat men. They can. Toussaint I’Ouverturo was a great man. I am not saying that the negroes have not the qualities. They have. But I do say that it is impossible for us to live as man to man together. I mean no offence to the negro when I assert this I would l:e the last man to deny that there are negro men of intellect. There are. And I lay my contention before them-—that it is impossible for us to live as equals together. Negroes hate white men, and they have good reason to hate them, and they have as little love for white hypocrites, who hold the negro’s country while at the same time they deplore his wrongs, as they have for the whites who are more honest and frank in the matter.

I have worked with negroes cutting sugar-cane in the iiclds of houisana ; and there 1 had practical first-hand proof of their feeling against white ■lien. There was a sullen, smouldering, terrible resentment that flamed up when the chance occurred. And this feeling was directed not only against the Americans of the South. It was directed against all men who were white. That there was strong reason for this is not to the point. The point is only that it exists, and that it is not to ho placated by any political device. The negro means to light when ho can. The situation can only end in one way.

There is another tiling. The best negroes feel that there is a splendid future before their nice. It may be that they dream of a world dominance. At least they hope to make of Africa a. great confederated negro State. And may I say that they would not bo human beings did they not feel thus? I, as a white man. have no feeling against the negro save the sense that it' is impossible for our races to mix. I am sorry that the negroes were enslaved and crushed and wronged. But I would ask them to remember that the law that caused all this was a sinister law outside the power of the white man to control. I would ask them to remember that white man lias crushed white man in as terrible a way as he has ever crushed negro. “White man is crushing white man even now. Again, 1 would ask them to remember that negro has crushed negro even as the white man has crushed the negro. We men ’of r the human race, whether' black, white, yellow, or red, have always lived under the rod of a sinister law that has forced us to crush and slay our fellows. Great, sympathetic men of'all races have set their faces against t-jiis universal crime. But these men have been as straw’s before the wind.

MOTORING ADVENTURES Whatever advantage masy be inherent. in automobiling, and they aie many (says the Post), the elements of uncertainty and risk appear to liave been a prominent'feature of a recent trip from Wellington to Auckland undertaken by a party of Wellington residents. The party loft Wellington on December I'Jtb, with the profesed intention of ‘‘beating tlio express to Napier.” All went well until Takapau was reached, and there a divergence of roads opened up unforeseen adventure, The car. which was travelling at twenty-live miles an hour, turned up the wrong road, and, rounding a cornel-, was precipitated into a creek, happily without serious results to life or limb. And there they wore, _ with a heavy ear firmly embedded in the soft ooze of tlie liver bottom, and their extremity accentuated by their ignorance of local resources. One of the party set out. for reinforcements, and, inter alia, accompanied a distance of threequarters of a mile in five hours. Gilt.edgecl persuasions ultimately induced auxiliary iorces to accept service, and the car was fairly lifted out of tlio creek. Their misadventures had but begun. A hostelry further on dollied them bed and hoard, and the party pushed on to Napier, where, in blissful ignorance of what was to eventuate, they had ordered dinner. Here, after some difficulty.—it was about five o’clock next morning—they were, admitted. Thereafter they proceeded on -their way to Cambridge, and en route their hill-climbing gear, which had filled them with the worst anticipations, ingloriously. retired from service, and the motorists gazed disconsolately at a seven-mile hill which lay before thorn.. A farmer was requisitioned, and the motor was hauled to the top of the hill. The ear subsequently comnletod the temper rail and steamer.

Under the heading “The Rule of Three,” Christchurch Truth explains how the weekly holiday fixture is arranged in that city :—Three delegates J from the “local bodies in the combined disricts in Christchurch” met gether in a bored sort of way last night, and decreed that the weekly half-holiday should continue to bo held on Thursday. Evidently these were the only three members of the local bodies who took enough interest in the affairs of the city to attend the meeting, the rest being too tired or too indifferent, or in bed or (perhaps) at tile nearest hotel. The meeting seems to have gone oil' smoothly ; the motion was put and seconded and discussed and duly carried in all solemnity’, no blood being spilt and no furniture used to enforce an argument. Then, when a momentous decision had been arrived at, the gathering felt for its lyiomentous hat and disappeared into the night, satisfied in the knowledge of duty well and nobly done. Only two local bodies were represented, two of those present being delegates from the City Council and one from the Woolston Borough Council, yet, in accordance with some weird statute relating to the weekly half-holiday, these three delegates are able to decide a question concerning thousands of slioj)keepers and employees. This procedure may be in due compliance with t,lie statutes, but it isn’t at all a fair thing for the public.