To condemn the wrong of repression would to-day be like preaching to the
converted. Most people now admit that the Africans are entitled, no less
than the Europeans, to develop themselves as far and as fully as they
can, but the question remains how they can be allowed to do so without
intensifying present antipathy on both sides. Parallelism is a word that
has been used a great deal of late to signify an attitude of mind, as I
take it, rather than a definite policy or plan of action, through which
it is hoped that separate scope for civilised activity and development
may be given to the Natives on lines parallel to those along which the
whites pursue their separate course, but without any forced territorial
separation of the two people. Metaphor of this kind is undoubtedly
useful to the political speaker in that it enables him to be apt without
being exact, and thereby frees him from the possibility of being pinned
down to a stated position, but in serious discussion exactness rather
than aptness is desired, and to the thinking man the figure of speech,
by which the notion of two lines running always parallel without meeting
is applied to the course of development of two races living together in
one country, is not convincing.

This idea of parallelism is based on the presumption that the ruling
race can so rule itself that by the mere exercise of its collective
will-power it can refuse always to mix socially with the growing numbers
of civilised Natives living and working in the same localities, and
thereby--in a manner not yet explained--avoid always the clashing and
ill-will that seems inseparable from the close contact of two dissimilar
races competing against one another in one country. The advice offered
from afar is that the whites should allow the Natives equal
opportunities with themselves in all the ways of civilised activity,
but--should not invite them home to dinner. Being based on an
unwarranted presumption parallelism here begs the question, for it is