Note 28 — Chapter III · THE PROBLEM OF SLAVERY

There are a few Half-castes now in South Africa who are results of the union of Englishmen with the Boer Half-castes who are the result of slavery; and even a few who are the result of the union of Englishmen, principally soldiers, with the aboriginal natives. But the mass of Half-castes were in existence seventy years ago when the English first began to people the country. It need hardly be said that the preponderance of Half-castes who owe their origin to the Boer in no way indicates any superiority in the matter of sexual self-respect on the part of the English. There exists at the present day in our seaport towns, under the ægis of the English flag, and legislated for by the English Government, a traffic between English soldiers and sailors and the lowest class of Half-caste women, more anti-social, and, if it be possible, more degrading than any relation between the ancient slave-holders and their female slaves. Yet, as the women concerned in this traffic belong very largely to that unhappy class, not one in fifty of whom is fruitful, and whose children, when such are born, generally die in infancy, there is no very great effect produced on the population of the country; the thousands of Half-castes born every year being mainly the result of unions between Half-castes. It should be well borne in mind, in dealing with this subject, that so rapid is the rate of human increase under even tolerably favourable conditions, that four Half-castes born two hundred years ago, might easily be the progenitors of at least two hundred Half-castes at the present day, without any further admixture of European blood.