Race Problems in the New Africa: a Study of the Relation of Bantu and Britons in those parts of Bantu Africa which are under British Control

Abstract

THE Rev. W. C. Willoughby, a professor in the Kennedy School of Missions in Connecticut, was formerly principal of a mission institution in South Africa, where he had opportunities of studying some Bantu who had long been under European influence. His account of Bantu thought is written with the bias of the missionary, and his point of view is indicated by his remark that the native women are better than the men. He widens his treatment by an account of work in other parts of Africa which is, however, largely an untrustworthy second-hand compilation. The author's views as to,the future of the races in Africa are reminiscent of those of the early South African political missionaries, as shown by the stress he lays on the influence, which he regards as deplorable, of the “low whites,” and his explanation of what are described as the poor effects of mission work as due to the Europeanisation of the natives. The colour difference he does not regard as a serious bar; he describes it as a “mere conceit,” and according to him, it is an effect of sunlight and humidity and is easily varied. The physical differences between the African and the white races he says are no barrier to comradeship, and the importance attached to colour is only as a symbol of the differences in social standards. The most valuable contribution in the book is its brief account of the Ethiopian movement in South Africa.

Race Problems in the New Africa: a Study of the Relation of Bantu and Britons in those parts of Bantu Africa which are under British Control.

Rev. Prof.

W. C.

Willoughby

By the. Pp. 296. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1923.) 15s. net.