THE COLOUR BAR
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sta,--Your correspondent of October 10th, Mr. Hubert Cartwright, is evidently not aware that experiments on the lines he suggests have been carried out in South Africa by scientists, who, as a result of their investigations, came to the conclusion that the native's brain power is in no way inferior to that of the white man. It may have been to these recently conducted experiments that Mr. S. Mogi referred, in his article. The native has the capacity to advance along those lines where brain power is a factor of success, when given the equivalent in education of what the white man receives, and the same opportunity to express himself and develop his natural powers.
I do not quite know what Mr. Cartwright has in mind when he speaks of reactions and muscular sense. The black man's physique may enable hint to recover from injuries to which a white man would succumb, but surely this has nothing to do with feeling, or emotion. The native man or woman, while extremely sensitive to injustice, responds very quickly to small kindnesses on the part of white people, and shows a gratitude that usually entails some amount of sacrifice. The matron of a native hospital told me she has found her black patients far more grateful than the white. Can Mr. Cartwright tell us exactly how primitive the builders of Stonehenge were, and in what way the Bantu excels in primitiveness ? Witchcraft, totems, and the old savage customs are quickly dying out. We ourselves are primitive in many ways to-day. For in- stance, in our tolerance of the exhibition to children of wild animals caged for life and deprived of the joy of speed in open spaces. It is not long since the treadmill was in use in our prisons, and the sentences passed on natives in South African courts of justice sometimes make one wonder if one is back in the middle ages. What Mr. Cartwright says about societies resisting fundamental changes made in its compo- sition by immigrants might apply equally well to the Bantu, who were in Africa before the white man appeared there. I cannot help thinking the upholders of the Colotkr Bar will have a most uncomfortable time when they get to heaven ; for it is certain there will be no colour bar theie.—I am, Sir,
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