Now if I am right in thinking that this racial feeling is engendered instinctively by physical dissimilarity only then we may not expect it to be removed or even lessened by the increased and general advancement of the Natives, for although we may hope that the whites will gradually come to recognise the abstract justice of the civilised Natives’ claim to full racial equality we must, at the same time, remember that the increasing competition of the black man in every walk of life is bound to bring into play and accentuate the natural race prejudice of the white man whereby the tolerance and good feeling that might otherwise result from a growing recognition of the civilised Natives’ mental and moral worth will be more than negatived.  The present state of affairs in the Southern States of America is a warning against easy optimism in this respect.  We must expect clashing and growing ill-will rather than social serenity to be the outcome of a continued policy of drift.

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