eir
inferiors.

Those who, like the American Bishop Hartzell, argued that the British
cause ought to win, since the Boers do not equal the English in just
treatment of inferior races, would do well to consider the following
facts:--

(1) In the strip of East African coast--a British Protectorate--which
faces Zanzibar _the full legal status of slavery_ is maintained, and
fugitive slaves have even been handed back to their owners by British
officials.

(2) In Zanzibar and Pemba the manumission of slaves presided over by Sir
Arthur Hardinge is proceeding slowly, and many thousands are still in
bondage.

(3) In Natal the _corvee_ system prevails, and all natives not employed
by whites may be impressed to labour for six months on the roads.

(4) In Bechuanaland, after a rebellion some years ago, natives were
parcelled out among the Cape farmers and indentured to them as virtual
slaves for a term of five years.

(5) Under the Chartered Company in Rhodesia the chiefs are required,
under compulsion, to furnish batches of young natives to work in the
mines; and the ingenious plan of taxing the Kaffir in money rather than
in kind has been adopted, so that he may be forced to earn the pittance
which the prospectors are willing to pay him.

(6) In Kimberley what is known as the compound system prevails. All
natives who work in the diamond mines are required to "reside" under
lock and key, day and night, in certain compounds, which resemble
spacious prisons. So stringent is the system that even the sick are
treated within the prison yard. On no pretext whatever is a native
allowed to leave his compound.

During these months of incarceration the natives are separated from
their women-folk and families. The consequence is one of the most
striking and shocking features of the compound system. A number of the
lowest, drink-besotted, coloured prostitutes, estimated at about 5,000,
have collected at Beaconsfield, where, so to speak, they constitute a
colony, occupying a revolting quarter of the township. When the natives
come out for a short spell these unhappy women receive them. It is, no
doubt, convenient from the standpoint of the company to have them there,
for it probably prevents the natives from going away. This moral cancer
is one of the direct and inevitable outcomes and concomitants of the
compound system.

(7) The South African Dutch contribute more money annually to native
mission work than the South African Engl