The split which was to be expected at Johannesburg between
the mercantile community and the great mine-owners upon the labour question appears to have occurred. The latter, there is now no doubt, seek to import Chinese; but the former, through the African Labour League, declare that the importation ought to be one of Europeans, by whom the railway and all other publics works should be constructed, the natives being left for the mines. They believe that if labour is thus divided the mines will be amply supplied, and indeed from the moment the owners reverted to their old rates of pay the situation improved, and there are now seventy-three thousand men at work. That this is the true policy we are convinced, the result of the importation of Chinese being that the race question will be still further complicated, and that at last the English settler will find himself undersold in every direction by the Chinaman, who will work sixteen hours a day, and disbelieves in the value of sanitary progress. The coexistence in one Colony of two races which cannot amalga- mate is quite trouble enough. We do not want to see South Africa become a cloaca gentium.
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