The Coolidge examiner., 1936-06-26

A PIONEER cOuntry's memOri-
II ials are usually natural fea-
L n lures. Rhodesia has its In
daba tree and its MatOpo hills. But
the most curious spectacle eXtant
associated with Rhodes is that de-
serted craterlike pit at the Kimber-
ley diamond mines, where he began
digging the fortune which made pos
sible his future coloniZing schemes.
Picture Kimberley in the 1S1Os.
Atop a bucket, alongside the check
erboard pattern of claims, sits
big rumple-haired slackly garbed
English youth, staring into vacancy.
In him Natal has lost cotton
grower, and the world will one day
gain-tO put it thus since his name
Is Rhodes-a Colossus.
The English doctors gave this
young Cecil John Rhodes a year or
so to live, but the South African eli
mate has saved him. From death to
diamonds. and from them to vast
wealth, South African statesman
ship, and empire-building-such will
be the swiftly ascended rungs dur
ing a life that will end at forty
nine years.
Meanwhile he dreamS-he is an
incorrigible dreamer. Presently he
will be making wills, based on some
future, chimerical wealth, to the end
of extending the British empire so
vastly as to "render wars impossible
and promote the best interests of
humanity"
The two Rhodesias, of which the
Northern colony is almost double
the size of the Southern, contain
about two and a half million Ban
tus and but 81 900 persons of Euro
pean descent. And over what an eX-
panse are these few scattered! One
might roughly compare the area OF
the Rhodesias with that of the thir-
teen states, or parts of states, lying
south of Pennsylvania, east of the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers, east
ward along the Gulf of Mexico, and
north of a hypothetical line running
through central Florida.
Picture the above region as being
occupied by a population only nine
times that of Atlanta, Ga.-a popu-
latiOn wherein the Bantu and white
races are prOpOrtiOned at 40 to l.
Consider, along with that, a civiliza-
ton only four decades old, and you
have the basic elements of Rho
desia, the pioneer colony.
Land of Real Pioneers.
In Rhodesia. individual effort has
developed into cooperation, crop
specializing into mixed farming, and
a department of agriculture, having
to do with the cultural and financing
sides of Rhodesian husbandry, has
come into being for the benefit of
the pioneers.
"Pioneer," be it noted, is strictly
masculine. We have heard of the
farmerette and the aviatriX, but
never of the ''pioneeress." Compar-
ing the proportion of women to men
in given countries, one finds that the
older civilizations generally have an
excess of the former over the lat
ter, whereas the reverse is true of
lands later settled, such as Canada,
New Zealand, the United States, and
Australia. Now, in this matter of
male surplusage, the yet-younger
RhOdesia Out-tOps almost all cOun-
tries and exceeds the above-named
quartette by "masculinity" of
from four to seven times greater.
That conveys, of course, no So
cial picture of Rhodesia, where
woman is playing her full part, as
always. Rather, it tells the old
story-that the foot-free man strikes
out for new lands and, in time,
sends overseas for that girl at
home" to make the land worth liv-
ing in.
And just here the governmental
settlers-assistance schemes enter the
picture. Somewhat similar in effect
:" the Homestead act that, in 1862,
called American pioneers to plant
their homes on free western lands,
the RhodeSian assistance schemes
went much further, in offering NOM
inally free passages from England
to the colony and, upon the set
tiers arrival, free agricultural in
structiOn for a year.
Like the homesteader he pledged
himself to remain for three years.
Unlike the homeEteader, he was
subject to a minimum and a maxi
mum of available capital, and bought
his land, at a dollar or so per acre,
on 24-year installment plan.
Settlers Have Good Homes.
To reach a RhOdesian settlers
farmstead, you might possibly drive
20 wooded miles off the turnpike,
and, If it is after nightfall, hear
some stray lion gulping gutturally
in the distance. Yet once arrived,
you find yourself in true home