2. The African unity I have in mind is to be found in an entirely different quarter and springs from motives very different from those actuating the administration of the colonial powers or the government of South Africa. Two-thirds of Africa is discovering a unity in the swelling volume of African racialism which so far as one can observe is the same in the Gold Coast as in Uganda or the Transvaal, in Kenya as in Southern Rhodesia. It has the same opponent - the white man - the same general, even vague objective - self-determination - and it is founded in an unmistakably common feature, the colour of its adherents. This last gives it one great advantage over its white rulers. Their colour unites them in the eyes of the African but so far has done little to bring them together in any significant common effort as far as this continent is concerned.

3. Bound together by two such powerful forces as the desire to shake free of the domination - however beneficent - of the white man and the fraternity of a skin pigmentation which almost everywhere in their experience is a disparagement of their race, it is not surprising that a buoyant and belligerent African nationalism or racism is now one of the most striking, and is certainly one of the most universal, social phenomena in Africa today.

4. To this potential of political and social revolution there have now been harnessed all the familiar powers of mass, swift, and sensational communication by the press and radio. As a result, wherever I have been in Africa, I have not only found that the African is intensely interested in what is happening in other parts of his continent - particularly in South Africa, the Gold Coast and now in Kenya - but that he also has abundant information on which to form his opinions and from which to draw encouragement.

5. Many people in South Africa are quite aware of all this. This government has, in matters of transportation, defence, and scientific research, not only supported but taken the initiative in promoting co-operation between African powers. But where the African himself is concerned, South Africans are in a dilemma. They repeatedly claim for their country the special task of preserving western civilization and aspire to give leadership to the other powers in authority in Africa. On the other hand they seem to be philosophically disqualified by their views on colour and by their fears of the African from playing such a role. Reasonable and earnest in so many ways, they seem to be quite incapable of dealing with an African movement because they can or will not concede that it has rights of its own and deserves at least as much respect and consideration as their own political and social convictions. There is a gap in mutual understanding which little is being done to bridge, so far as I can see, and each day it widens. Shortly before his death, about two years after the present Government of South Africa came to power, General Smuts remarked that even if he were to assume office at that date he was doubtful if he could bring about any reconciliation between the Africans and the Europeans, for many years. So far did he judge the races to have drifted apart. Today they are even further apart, and it appears all the more ominous when viewed against the background of Africa as a whole.

6. It is possible, I suppose, to over-theories about this matter and to overlook the countless obstacles that still divide and weaken any concerted African movement on this scale. But facts more compelling than the logic of a theory make it difficult to escape these conclusions. In the urban riots of the last few weeks, in the slow surge of the resistance movement, in the daily exhortations of African leaders to their people, the uniting spirit of the African race stretching from the Cape to the Sahara is as positive a force as the batons of the police or the laws which bar the black man from the economic opportunity which he so frequently merits.

T.W.L. MAcDERMOT