to keep the white stock pure by making stringent laws against the freeing of black women for the purpose of marriage, but to how little avail the sight of the present highly varied colored population is evidence. The fact was that the French colonial in those illicit relations with dark women which all colonial societies have suffered was much kinder, more humane, more open, and less ashamed of his irregular establishments than his English neighbors. For example, in the old days it was customary for the white man to give land or houses to his colored mistress, to admit the relationship. As a consequence, one finds that to-day the colored offspring of miscegenation will speak with pride of his white father or grand-father. Instead of becoming neither a good white nor a good black, as the American has it, the French mixed blood is conscious of a superiority, and whether due to a real improvement of stock or to the benefit of a better upbringing, the lightly colored folk are the ones to be found in responsible positions, in trade and in the civil service. In fact if there is ever a race conflict in the French islands it will come about because of competition for control between the pure blacks, the plantation hands, who are less advanced, and the mixed breed who are socially conscious and ambitious—not between the white and the black. For here, as in the English Antilles, the white has already practically given over the hopeless struggle for racial dominance. Their numbers are falling every decade, and their wealth. "Two obvious agencies have assisted in creating the French colored civilization-the Catholic Church and the public schools. The French colonies are saturated with Catholicism. Not even in Brittany is the wayside shrine, the wayside cross, the calvaire as common as in Martinique. And whatever else one may find to say about Catholicism it inculcates in its lowliest representatives a spirit of Christian equality." "The first question the American traveler is asked in Martinique by both white and colored, asked with curiosity and agitation, is: "What is your country going to do with us? Will the United States take the French Antilles in payment of war debts?" "Why should the handing over of these lovely, fertile islands to the United States be the unmitigated disaster that it unquestionably would be to their present inhabitants? The answer to this question reveals the secret of our failure in handling our own race problem and the success of the French way with the same problem. Ignoring the economic working of the Eighteenth Amendment in a rum-making territory (which has largely devastated the Virgin Islands we bought from the Danes and which would simply prostrate Martinique and Guadeloupe) the graver reason is that our prejudices unfit us to govern or assimilate a colored people. We should inevitably create another and worse Porto Rican sore, and ruin something fine of great promise if permitted to work itself out, and that is the creation of a French colored civilization. The root of that civilization is the frank acceptance of what we hypocritically shudder at and surreptitiously practice, miscegenation. We have a huge literature, probably largely unscientific, on race hybridization, and the popular mind in America is so clouded on this subject, so closed, and so inflamed that we should consider and treat the populations of these islands merely as "niggers," offending their pride, ignoring their just claims to individuality, probably trying to suppress their language, as we are engaged in suppressing Spanish in Porto Rico. We are the most intolerant people in the world, as we have recently demonstrated to the Japanese, and the most ignorantly prejudiced, as we are engaged in demonstrating in Haiti. In Martinique and Guadeloupe we should have a more advanced people to deal with than in either Haiti or Porto Rico, and one that the usual American administrator would not have the imagination to understand.' "The hope for these French foster children, as in a somewhat different way it is for the English colored populations, is to be allowed to extend self-rule, to develop themselves in a climate to which they are admirably adapted-even at the expense of less sugar, cocoa, limes. The world needs the harmonious development of the culture of these mixed white and black people far more than it needs more sugar and other tropical riches. It needs the gaiety, the beauty, the vivid color sense of the French mulatto-another demonstration of the age-old fact that white and black have mingled without terrible consequences, as among the Mediterranean peoples. And America needs the object lesson which the French are giving of a possible humane solution of the race problem.” POPULATION OF THE PRINCIPAL WEST INDIAN ISLANDS. *Chiefly Negroes. **Composition of population see below, Discription of Santo Domingo. **: Monument Unveiled To France's Black Troops. On July 13th, 1924 there was unveiled at Rheims a memorial to the black French troops who took part in the war. The monument, of which a replica has already been set up at Bamako, in the French Sudan, represents a group of four African sous-Lieutenants, in front of whom stands a guard carrying a French Colonial flag, and is the work of M. MoreauVauthier. It is situated on the Boulevard Henri-Vasnier, the site of the trenches occupied by the Sengalese during defence of Rheims in 1918. In a speech full of praise for the troops, General Archinard, the conqueror of the French Sudan, gave a brief account of their achievements, touching especially on the part played by the Senegalese under General Mazillier, who showed high courage and contributed greatly to the final victory. If further proof of the valor of the Colonial troops were needed, he said, it was afforded by the virulence of the German propaganda against their participation in the War. The Colonial troops of all units fighting before Rheims in the defence during May, June and July, 1918, represented a dozen bataillons-not quite a tenth of the total present -but they had proved themselves terrible to the enemy. They had fought for love of France, who had treated them with sympathy and justice, putting them on the same footing as her other children, and, after recounting a number of individual acts of bravery, General Archinard said that they justified the memorable phrase of one of the Senegalese who accompanied Marchand's expedition across Africa: "I am black, but I have a white heart." France's Attitude Under Her Flag. Under the law of January, 1921, the old territorial divisions of the active army are done away with altogether, except for home defense units, and formations are raised from all over the Empire without distinction of territory of race. That is why we meet all over France and French Africa the bataillon mixte, in which Frenchmen and Negroes serve side by side with equal chances of promotion. It must be confessed that the experiment works extraordinarily well. Here we see the irreconcilable difference between the French outlook and the British. Germans who see in the presence of West African blacks at Mainz a terrible attempt to humiliate and insult them, American tourists to Paris who cry out against black men sitting down in trams and cafes with them, are blind to what is the guiding movement in France's scheme of national defense. The attitude and policy of France with respect to the black races under her flag was stated as follows by Prime Minister Poincare when he said in the French Assembly: "France does not distinguish between the races living under her flag. In many of her old possessions she has even given to the native inhabitants. all the perogatives of French nationality. This is notably the case in the Antilles and I do not need to say to you that, in the eyes of the Government and the republic, there are not two categories or classes of citizens. "If the Government has chosen not to use black troops for the occupation of the Ruhr, it is certainly not that it has ceased reprobating the abominable calumnies but because it thought it wiser not to furnish, for the time being, any pretext for a propaganda which it will continue combating wherever it shows itself but which unhappily has penetrated even among peoples that are our friends." Foreign Guests Not To Forget Bound To Respect French Customs And Laws. The display of race prejudice by many American Tourists and the attempt to force color line customs in public places cause the Petit Bleu, a Paris newspaper, to demand that tourists agencies insist that their patrons respect the customs of the country in which they are sojourning; continuing, this paper said: "These Americans behave as vulgar persons, their riduculous aversion for men of color contains no excuse. They are not at home but in our country, which is an entirely different affair. The protest of these individuals, devoted to white integralism, merited a severe lesson, and it is to be regretted one was not given which would make them see all colors. It is unfortunate that it was not made apparent that a Frenchman, whatever his color, is worth at least any foreign tourist." Four Americans about to board a sight-seeing bus in Paris objected to the presence within the car of some cadets from the Freujus Military School, which France maintains for officer-aspirants from colonial Africa. The Americans demanded expulsion of the cadets, were repulsed and declined to take seats within the car. Some members of the Chamber of Deputies, hearing of the incident, lodged a protest with the Foreign Office. The Minister of Foreign Affairs replied publicly as follows: "Foreign guests, forgetting they are our guests and bound to respect our customs and laws, recently on several occasions have forcibly manifested their aversion to seeing colored men born in French colonies sit by their side in public places. They have even gone to the length of demanding their expulsion in insulting terms. If such incidents are repeated, punishment I will be exacted." It was reported that, at the Fourth Congress of the Third or Communist Internationale, held at Moscow, Russia, in 1922, there were present Negro representatives from the United States, from the West Indies from West Africa and South Africa. Important Features Of The Situation In Africa With Respect To Natives. In the pages which follow, an extended summary of conditions in Africa as they are affecting the Natives are given. A brief summary of this survey is that: 1. There is a notable tendency for Missionary Societies: (a) To co-operate with each other, and to eliminate competition. (b) To co-operate with colonial Governments. (c) To give more recognition to the Native Worker and to use him more in missionary effort. (d) To show more of a disposition to work with and not for the Natives. (e) To place more emphasis on the practical side of religion, that is, on education, health and economic improvement. 2. There is a growing disposition of colonial governments: (a) To give more recognition to native laws and customs. (b) To give more opportunity for the expression of native opinion. (c) To give the natives more voice in those matters which politically and in other ways affect them. (d) To do more for the general welfare of the natives, that is through education, health, and economic development. 3. There is a growing tendency of the Natives: (a) To express their desires and aspirations and to demand what they think is their due. (b) To organize for political and economic advancement. 4. There is a growing spirit of inter-racial co-operation, particularly in the Union of South Africa. This is manifested by: (a) The tendency to consult with the natives with respect to proposed legislation and laws affecting them. In former days the custom was to enact laws and then inform the natives that the laws had been enacted. (b) The formation of committees and other agencies for inter-racial co-operation. Such committees under the title of "Native Welfare Organizations" have been organized in many parts of the Union of South Africa. Religious denominations are also active in this work. Nations of Africa Differ Among Themselves More Than Nations Of Europe. Dr. James H. Dillard, President of the Jeanes and Slater Boards on his return recently to America from a trip to Africa as a member of the Commission to study Educational conditions in East Africa said: "The thing that impressed me most in Africa was the tremendous variety of nations.' "The nations differed among themselves more than the nations of Europe -in habits, custom, language, and religion." "Another striking thing is the improvement in the condition of the women. The men used to do the fighting and the women do the work. Of their own accord this has stopped." This is a great step forward. "The one thing that struck me on the way down the coast is the determination of the natives to have an education. They are going to have it. I went out in the country and saw what the people themselves were doing. Those people are finding that there is something that helps to keep their interest; that is education, and they are determined to get it. Missionary students have started schools. There was a native college in South Africa where the students who attended had to pass an examination harder than any college in America. There were seventy genuine college students, and a fine medical school is to be established there. Advisory Committee Native Education British African Possessions. In July, 1923, an Advisory Committee on Native Education in the British Tropical African Dependencies was established. The members of the Committee are appointed for three years and are: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Colonies (chairman). The Right Reverend A. A. David, Bishop of Liverpool. The Right Reverend Bishop Bidwell (nominated by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminister). Sir James Currie (formerly Principal of Gordon College, Khartoum, and Director of Education in the Sudan, director of the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation). Sir Frederick Lugard. Mr. J. H. Oldham, Secretary of the International Missionary Council; Sir Herbert Read, Assistant Under-Secretary of State, Colonial Office; Sir Michael Sadler, Master of University College, Oxford; and Major H. Vischer, formerly Director of Education in the Northern Provinces of Nigeria. The terms of reference of the Committee are: To advise the Secretary of State for the Colonies on any matters of native education in the British Colonies and Protectorates in Tropical Africa which may from time to time be referred to them, and to assist him in advancing the progress of education in those Colonies and Protectorates. Educational Commissions In East Africa. Beginning in January, 1924, an Educational Commission visited East Africa' The personnel of the Commission was: Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, Educational Director, Phelps-Stokes Fund, head of the Commission; Dr. James H. Dillard of the General Educational Board and President of the Jeanes and Slater Funds; Dr. H. L. Shantz, Agriculturalist and Botanist of the United States Department of Agriculture; Professor J. E. K. Aggrey, a native of the Gold Coast and formerly a Professor in Livingston College, Salisbury, N. C.; Dr. Garfield Williams, Educational Secretary of the Church Missionary Society; James W. C. Dougall, of Scotland; and George B. Dillard. The Commission was organized and sent out through the co-operation of the Phelps-Stokes Fund with the International Education Board, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Conference of Missionary Associations of Great Britain and Ireland, the Committee of Reference and Counsel of the United States and Canada, and Governments directly concerned in Africa. About eight months were spent in the investigation, which included Abyssinia, Kenya, Uganda, Zanzibar, Tanganyika, Nyasaland, Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Protuguese East Africa. The purpose of the Commission. was to inquire as to the extent to which the social, hygienic, economic, and mental needs of the natives are being met by the present educational undertakings, and to suggest ways in which a closer adaptation of educational undertakings can be brought about. Severe Restrictions Imposed On To Do Mission Or Educational Work. During the year 1922 the Commission on Native Affairs of the Union South Africa was asked by the Government to enquire into certain cases of non-Europeans from America entering the Union for mission or |