SOLOMON T. PLAATJE

The natives are the original occupants of this country; this applies to a very large part of South Africa, at any rate. Their numbers are at least four times as great as the European population. Being an agricultural and stock-rearing people, they need considerable areas of arable land as land suitable for stock-raising. No one can deny them their right to live and to develop under every opportunity that offers to them, and which they are capable of securing. Any action of Government, or of any supposed superior race, which deprives them of this right to live or to develop their own lives, and improve their status as a people, becomes an act of oppression or of suppression.

-Solomon T. Plaatje,"The Native Land Bill", Tsala ea Batho (The People's Friend), May 17, 1913.