as the natural result of their lack of education and civilization.
He is devoted to his own people, and notes with ever-increasing regret
the lack of understanding and knowledge of those people,
which is so palpable in the vast majority of the letters and leading articles
written on the native question. As an educated Native with liberal ideas
he rather resents the power and authority of the uneducated native chiefs
who govern by virtue of their birth alone, and he writes and speaks
for an entirely new school of native thought. The opinion of such a man
ought to carry weight when native affairs are being discussed.
We have fallen into the habit of discussing and legislating
for the Native without ever stopping for one moment to consider
what the Native himself thinks. No one but a fool will deny
the importance of knowing what the Native thinks before we legislate for him.
It is in the hope of enlightening an otherwise barren controversy
that we shall publish from time to time Mr. Plaatje's letters,
commending them always to the more thoughtful and practical of our readers.
-- `Pretoria News', September, 1910.
==

(The writer of this appreciation, the Editor of the Pretoria evening paper,
was Reuter's war correspondent in the siege of Mafeking.)




(B) Prologue



We have often read books, written by well-known scholars,