Читать книгу Thoughts on South Africa онлайн

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But, it might be yet asked: "If our peoples are so mingled that our states cannot become the foundation of healthy national life, would it not be possible in so large and sparsely peopled a country to redivide our races, giving to each its territory?" Apart from the physical impossibilities which render such a proposal ridiculous, if, by some almighty force, all our natives could be gathered into one territory, our Boers in another, and our Englishmen into a third, no sooner would that force be removed than we should remingle in the old manner, the native as labourer craving the products of our civilization, the Boer as farmer, and the Englishman, Jews and other newcomers as speculators and builders of railroads, and introducers of commerce. A natural want binds and blends our races. But there is a subtler reason why such racial divisions are not even thinkable. The blending has now gone too far. There is hardly a civilized roof in South Africa that covers people of only one nation; in our households, in our families, in our very persons we are mingled.