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Migrancy and Urbanization in the Union of South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Extract

There have been many movements of population in human history, and almost as many reasons for them. But all of them have one feature in common. They arose as a result of a change either in the external circumstances confronting a society or a section of it, or in the reactions of the people to their external circumstances. Migrations have always involved preferences, and occurred when preferences have changed. Perhaps the reception area has improved. Perhaps the other area has worsened. Perhaps both processes have occurred simultaneously. Whatever the causes of the change in relative preferences, whether it be the development of racial, political, or religious persecution, the occurrence or threat of war, the discovery of new continents or new sources of wealth, the effect of new medical techniques in enabling the opening up of hitherto uninhabitable countries, or the decline in fertility in the occupied area, it is the change that precedes the movement.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1948

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References

page 161 note 1 Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. x, p. 189.

page 162 note 1 Union Year Book, No. 6, pp. 705–6; cf. Kiewiet, de, A History of South Africa—Social and Economic, chaps, iv and v (1941)Google Scholar; cf. deKock, , Economic Development of South Africa, chap, iv (1934)Google Scholar.

page 163 note 1 Union Year Book, No. 22 of 1941, pp. 913–14Google Scholar.

page 163 note 2 Gold Production dated from 1884.

page 163 note 3 The first diamond was discovered in 1867.

page 163 note 4 Union Year Book, No. 22 of 1941, p. 803, and No. 8 of 1910–25, p. 496Google Scholar. Early records of diamonds were very incomplete.

page 163 note 5 Union Year Book, No. 8 of 1910-1925Google Scholar.

page 163 note 6 See van Biljon, State Interference in South Africa, chap. iv. See also Report No. 282 of the Board of Trade and Industries on Manufacturing Industries of the Union, 1945, chap. xiGoogle Scholar.

page 163 note 7 Report 286 of Board of Trade and Industries on Metallurgical Industries of the Union.

page 163 note 8 Report 282 cited above, par. 35.

page 163 note 9 Report 282 cited above, par. 37, and passim.

page 164 note 1 Union Year Book, No. 22 of 1941Google Scholar.

page 164 note 2 Census of Industrial Establishments for 1941-1942Google Scholar. What I have called the Witwatersrand is more accurately named the southern Transvaal industrial area.

page 164 note 3 This later figure is preliminary, only the European figures of the 1946 census having been finalized.

page 164 note 4 The figures are not strictly comparable. Earlier censuses were not very reliable; the areas included as ‘urban’ have changed; ‘urban’ is defined by its administrative authority rather than functionally. But it is the broad trend rather than its precise measurement that concerns us here, and the trend is too marked for the conclusions to be much invalidated.

page 164 note 5 de Kiewiet, op. cit., p. 96.

page 164 note 6 Union Year Book, No. 22 of 1941, p. 993Google Scholar .

page 164 note 7 The trend has continued to 1946. Whilst the over-all comparative figures used in the above table for rural and urban population has not yet been published, the Europeans in 1946 in twenty-five principal towns accounted for 54 per cent, of the total European population as against 48 per cent, in 1936, a very rapid increase, their numbers having risen from 954,000 in 1956 to 1,261,000 in 1946.

Non-Europeans also increased rapidly. From 1,246,000 in these towns in 1936, they rose to 1,781,000 in the latter year, from 16 per cent, of the total non-European population to 20 per cent.

To some extent these figures exaggerate the rate of urbanization as measured in the table, because they conceal and include a movement from the town to the city. But some of the towns listed had a rate of population increase less than the average rate for the country as a whole, such as Kimberley. Similarly, both sets of figures pay no attention to the rate of natural increase. It was lower, however, in the urban areas than in the rural.

(Figures for 1936 from the official census. Those for 1946 from preliminary figures issued to the Press, and quoted Natal Mercury, 13 Aug. 1947Google Scholar.)

page 165 note 1 This table is compiled from the official census, taken every five years for Europeans, and every ten years for non-Europeans. Reasons of State and economy have resulted in its being honoured as frequently in the breach as in the observance.

page 165 note 2 The drift to the towns has been a central problem in the so-called Poor White problem. See Report of the Transvaal Indigency Commission, 1904; the Report of the Carnegie Commission into the Poor White Problem in South Africa, 1929-32; de Kiewiet, South Africa-Economic and Social History; W. M. Macmillan, Bantu, Boer and Britain; Complex South Africa.

page 166 note 1 Prof. E. Walker, History of South Africa.

page 166 note 2 For the meaning of these terms see below p. 170.

page 166 note 3 de Kiewiet, The Imperial Factor in South Africa, passim.

page 166 note 4 S. v. d. Horst, Native Labour in South Africa, passim.

page 166 note 5 See map.

page 166 note 6 Macmillan, W. M., Africa Emergent, p. 159Google Scholar.

page 166 note 7 U.G. 13 of 1916. (Report of the Beaumont Commission.)

page 166 note 8 Ibid.

page 166 note 9 Report No. 4 of the Social and Economic Planning Council, U.G. 10 of 1945, par. 31. The Native Land and Trust Act of 1956 released some 7½ million morgen to add to this 10½ million morgen. To date only 1,592,124 morgen have been actually acquired.

page 166 note 10 The gold-mines have always had to rely largely on foreign labour. ‘It is a somewhat remarkable fact that-except for Transvaal Natives-the Union Native was comparatively a late comer to the Mines. … At the earliest date at which Witwatersrand Native Labour Association records are available—January, 1903-88.9 per cent, of the Natives employed by members of the Association were East Coasters. … By the 31st December 1922, the East Coast Natives employed by gold-mining members of the W.N.L.A. and their contractors had fallen to 40·4 per cent, of the total.’ (Read, C. L., The South African Journal of Economics, Dec. 1933, pp. 398–9Google Scholar. ‘Foreign’ natives still make up some 40 per cent. of the labour force.

page 168 note 1 Cf. Monica Hunter, Reaction to Conquest; Krige, Eileen Jensen, ‘Economics of Exchange in a Primitive Society’, S.A. Journal of Economics, Mar. 1941Google Scholar.

page 168 note 2 Horst, S. v. d., Native Labour in South Africa, pp. 2934Google Scholar. It should be noted that the absence of the younger men had much less effect than the latter movement of the older married men on Reserve economy and society.

page 168 note 3 Lobola is less a bride-price than an insurance of the bride's good behaviour and proper treatment in the patriarchal family to which she moves on marriage. It also provides evidence that she has married well and so contributed to the family prestige and been pleasing to her ancestors.

page 169 note 1 The Witwatersrand Native Labour Association operating outside the Union and High Commission Territories was begun in 1901; the Native Recruiting Corporation in 1912. Report of the Witwatersrand Mine Native Wages Commission, U.G. 21–44, pars. 46–74.

page 169 note 2 Macmillan, W. M., Complex South Africa, p. 120Google Scholar.

page 169 note 3 Report of the Native Economic Commission, pars. 67-9 and 73.

page 170 note 1 Report of the Witwatersrand Native Mine Wages Commission, U.G. 21–44, Par. 124.

page 170 note 2 Small stock calculated at 5 equalling 1 head of large. Ibid., par. 126.

page 170 note 3 Report of Overstocking Committee in Transkeian Territories, 1941Google Scholar.

page 170 note 4 U.G. 21–44.

page 170 note 5 Ibid., pars. 129–30.

page 170 note 6 Ibid., 124–5.

page 170 note 7 Ibid., 136–9.

page 170 note 8 Evidence Dr. Fox, S.A. Institute of Medical Research, quoted U.G. 21–44, Par. 192. Cf. Dr. P. Allan (par. 191); Dr. McGregor (par. 194) et al.

page 170 note 9 Native Farm Labour Committee Report, op. cit.

page 170 note 10 Amongst employers must be listed housewives as well as the Chamber of Mines. Thus in Durban the 77,000 males registered in employment in 1946 were divided between manufacturing industry (31,400), domestic service (16,800), commerce (14,700), public service including the South African Railways and Harbours (9,400), flats and hotels (3,200), and miscellaneous (1,100). Cf. Memo, of the Department of Economics, Natal University College, to the Native Laws Commission of Enquiry, Table 8.

page 171 note 1 Thus in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries where the development of machine production, the growth of mining, industry, and commerce were all rapid, so was the process of urbanization. But as a result of the growth of private inclosures of land, the people who came to the new cities of the midlands had for the most part lost their right to rural holdings. As a result of the policy of grants-in-aid-of-wages, the Speenhamland system initiated by the Berkshire magistrates in a misguided effort to reduce the incubus of Poor Law Relief, they also lost their capacity to earn a rural livelihood as agricultural labourers. The loss both of right to land and rural earnings ensured for most that there was no reason to return. The exodus was final; the nexus with the land was in most cases completely cut.

page 171 note 2 Similarly the vast flow of immigrants into the United States spread across the continent, swelling their growing industrial cities. There have throughout American history been great population movements even quite recently, as with the flight from the Middle West Dustbowl in the thirties, or the movements into California, Washington, and Oregon during the recent war (see Economist, 23 Aug. 1947Google Scholar, quoting American census figures). But each migration was the prelude to settlement. For most, there was no desire to return to the less profitable area or occupation they had left. Labour was mobile to meet the new demand. It might settle. It might move again. But each migration implied and tended towards eventual settlement. The permanent migrant was an exception, often a social problem, like the Lobo and the Mexican families in Texas, The mass was mobile, but stable-tending. The movement might, of course, be reversed, as when impoverished emigrants from Texas and Arizona returned when the oil fields were discovered. But the reverse movement was no different from the original. Already there are signs that families who had moved from the Orange Free State to Port Elizabeth, Durban, or the Rand in search of employment will be returning to the recently discovered goldfields.

page 171 note 3 Urban Areas (Natives) Amendment Act, 1943.

page 171 note 4 This means that if found redundant under the Urban Areas Act, they are technically liable to expulsion from the urban area. The law, however, is rarely applied with this rigour.

page 171 note 5 Memo, of Evidence of the Chamber of Mines to the Native Laws Commission of Enquiry.

page 172 note 1 On this basis they find their labour force of 310,239 on 31 Dec. 1946 as made up of 4,061 detribalized (1·36 per cent.), 5,983 transitional (1·88 per cent.), and 300,195 tribalized (9675 per cent.).

page 172 note 2 Report No. 2 on Social Security, par. 286.

page 173 note 1 Thus in the Union as a whole urban, masculinity declined from 70 per cent, in 1911 to 62 per cent, in 1936. See supra.

page 173 note 2 ‘Potential working life’ is used to cover the period of life from 15 to 60 of a man capable of wage employment.

page 173 note 3 The Department of Economics at Natal University College is doing the bulk of the work in this regard.

page 173 note 4 The situation at Cape Town is somewhat exceptional. Africans were a relatively small group in their population even as recently as 1936. To-day, however, it is estimated that there are 70,000 in the area, a phenomenal increase. The Witwatersrand picture, outside of the gold-mines, is similar to that of Durban. Port Elizabeth, however, the fourth main industrial area, has probably the most stable population group. Durban is dealt with in detail because of the much greater amount of material available'in a country where figures are scanty and little research has till now been done.

page 173 note 5 From Tables 3 and 4 of the Memo, of Evidence of the Department of Economics, Natal University College, to the Native Laws Commission of Enquiry.

page 173 note 6 Ibid., Table 6.

page 173 note 7 From Table in Industrial Durban, published by Durban Publicity Association in connexion with the S.A. Industries Fair, July 1947. The table supplied by the Dept. of Economics, N.U.C.

page 173 note 8 N.U.C. Memo., op. cit., Table 7. In the absence of adequate vital statistics, these ages are only approximate.

page 174 note 1 (These figures are provisional, the final report not yet having been published. The survey is being conducted by the Department ofEconomics, N.U.C., o t whom I am indebted for permission to quote them.) It should be noted that if the factory is taken as representative of the city population, this means a higher proportion of urbanization. To the urbanized group must be added the wives and children of those who were married. Thus population equalled 1,000 plus 80 wives plus 210 children = 1,290, and urbanized—138 plus 80 plus 210 — 428. Similarly, aged dependants should also be included, f i no other children were helping them.

page 174 note 2 Records of the Native Affairs Dept. of the Corporation of Durban.

page 174 note 3 R. H. Smith, ‘Labour Resources of Natal’, an unpublished thesis for the M.A. degree. In the building trade and domestic service turnover was even more rapid. Sixty per cent, of the jobs lasted less than 6 months and over 75 per cent, less than 1 year. The arithmetic average of all jobs was 075 a year, i.e. 8·76 months. In general, jobs in secondary industry lasted longer than those in any other category except public service. Forty-one per cent, lasted less than 6 months, and 58 per cent, less than 1 year, while 6 per cent, lasted over 3 years. Smith found that initial jobs slightly exceeded the proportion of all jobs in commerce, domestic service, transport, and some smaller classes, while flats and hotels rose from 4·9 per cent, of initial jobs to 11·9 per cent, of eighth jobs (averaging 6·2 per cent, of all jobs). The same trend was apparent with municipal employment and with industry. With industry it increased from 9·7 per cent, of initial jobs to 1·2 per cent, of all jobs and 15·3 per cent, of seventh jobs,

page 175 note 1 The proportion was higher than this in 19 of the 41 Reserves involved.

page 175 note 2 Quoted from R. H. Smith, op. cit.

page 175 note 3 I am indebted to Dr. Gample of the Polela Health Centre at a Reserve between Pietermaritzburg and Bulwer, for figures based on ten years' experience showing 10 per cent, of the adult male population of this reserve as stable.

page 175 note 4 ‘Migrant’ or ‘migratory’ is the term generally used to describe that class of workers which moves from one area to another in search of employment. Garter Goodrich, in an article on ‘Migratory Labour’ in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. x, p. 441, says: ‘Its existence usually presupposes the existence of a wage economy people who are prepared to migrate, i.e. people who are wholly or partly dependent on wage labour and seasonal variations in the demand for labour.’ To this last clause exception can be taken as will be seen.

page 175 note 5 See Statement by W. Gemmill in Memo, of Chamber of Mines of Native Laws Commission; cf. Lord Hailey, An African Survey, passim.

page 176 note 1 See Appendix I of U.G. 21–44.

page 177 note 1 i.e. Natives from the Protectorates.

page 177 note 2 Report of Mine Native Wages Commission, U.G. 21–44, par. 209.

page 177 note 3 Stent, G. E., ‘Some Reflections on Migratory Labour in South Africa’, Theoria, published by Natal University College, 1947Google Scholar.

page 177 note 4 Thus a person orphaned in their society and destitute would in most tribes be adopted into a family where his status, at first that of a servant, became eventually that of a member or participant.

page 178 note 1 It was with these words that Prof. A. Hoernlé opened his magnificent series of Phelps-Stokes Leetures at the University of Cape Town in 1939 (pub- lished as South African Native Policy and the Liberal Spirit). He is also responsible for the phrase: ‘The discussion of race questions in South Africa is more apt to generate heat than light.’

page 178 note 2 Of the 153 members of the House of Assembly, all but three are elected by Europeans under universal adult suffrage, plus in the Cape some 5,000 coloured voters. The remaining three are elected by Africans, who may also elect a small minority of Senators in addition to the four nominated by the Governor-General to protect their interests.

page 178 note 3 This does not deny that many individuals and organizations have worked painstakingly on behalf of the Africans. It may explain their relative ineffectiveness. And it does explain the decision of the Native Representative Council not to resume their sittings unless they have an earnest of the Government's intention to implement promises with action, and their complaint that their opinion not only is frequently not even asked, but almost always ignored.

page 178 note 4 Cf. Report No. 9 of the Social and Economic Planning Council, passim.

page 178 note 5 As laid down by the Native Labour Regulation Act of 1911.

page 178 note 6 There is no law requiring an African to carry a particular document called a ‘Pass’. But there are a number of laws and regulations, ordinances of provinces, and municipal regulations, each laying it down that an African must at all times have on his person certain documents or receipts, such as labour service contracts, poll- and hut-tax receipts, work-seeking permits, night ‘passes’, &c. What is needed varies from province to province and municipal area to municipal area. Assiduous research by the Institute of Race Relations has revealed large numbers of such documents, but they confess that their list is quite possibly incomplete. To conform to the law in this regard is almost impossibly difficult for large numbers of illiterate Africans, as is witnessed by the large number of convictions. (Memo, of Institute of Race Relations to the Native Laws Commission of Enquiry, 1946Google Scholar.)

page 179 note 1 These applications by farmers led to the appointment of the Inter-departmental Committee on Farm Labour which reported in 1939.

page 179 note 2 By the (Lansdowne) Police Commission of 1928; the (Smit) Commission on the Conditions of Urban Natives, 1942, various publications of the Institute of Race Relations; Memo. of Dept. of Economics, N.U.C., to Native Laws Commission of Enquiry.

page 179 note 3 The main amendment in the Act of 1945 involved the setting up of so-called ‘Reception Depots’ to which new entrants to the urban areas must report, and which are empowered to send elsewhere—either to rural or proclaimed urban areas—labour that is redundant, provided that they receive rates not less favourable than those current i n the district. These have so far been applied to check the flow to Cape Town, and to remove foreign labour in domestic service in Johannesburg, which has been given the option of repatriation or service contracts on European farms.

page 179 note 4 Cf. Farm Labour Committee, op. cit.

page 179 note 5 Thus during 1946 the number of permits to seek work issued by the Durban Native Administration Department was 8,693 per month, or about 300 per day. As each permit had a currency of one week, it is probable that there was a daily average of about 1,000 Africans legally looking for employment. In addition an unknown number were seeking work in Durban illegally. In 1946, in Durban, about 8 per cent, of the Africans registering service contracts had secured their jobs without first seeking permits to seek work. (From information supplied by the N.A.D.) Of the Africans who registered their first non-mining service contracts in Johannesburg between 1937 and 1944, about 8 per cent, had arrived in the ‘proclaimed area’ without a pass. R.H. Smith, ‘Native Employment in Johannesburg’, unpublished report of the University of the Witwatersrand.

page 180 note 1 In the days before deterioration had far progressed in the Reserves, it was the young single men who came out in search of employment and wages. It was not really until impoverishment led to the migration of married men from the Reserves that the dangerous social implications of the barracks became really apparent.

page 180 note 2 That the usual form was a ‘compound’ originates perhaps in the practice of the diamond-mines who, for obvious reasons, soon discovered a need to isolate their workers from an outside world which included illicit diamond buyers.

page 180 note 3 Cf. agreement with Government of Portuguese East Africa.

page 180 note 4 i.e. including men who are unaccompanied by their wives and families.

page 180 note 5 The Johannesburg municipality is at present providing plots of 20 x 20 ft. at a rent of 15s. per month for shack-builders.

page 181 note 1 U.G. 32 of 1912, Schedules C and D, pp. dxxvi-clxxvii.

page 181 note 2 U.G. 21 of 1938, Table 8, p. 34.

page 181 note 3 Press, 13 Aug. 1947. Preliminary census figures for 7 May 1946.

page 181 note 4 Housing Survey conducted by Department of Economics, N.U.C.

page 181 note 5 Dept. of Economics, Memo, of Evidence to the Durban Judiciary Native Enquiry Commission, Oct. 1947, Table 2, p. 9Google Scholar.

page 182 note 1 Cf. A First Account of Labour Organization in South Africa; by Gitsham, E. and Membath, J., pp. 2552Google Scholar; F. Cope, Comrade Bill; S. v. d. Horst, op. cit., chap. xi.

page 182 note 2 Introduced by General Hertzog.

page 182 note 3 In practice European labour.

page 182 note 4 Among these are the Mines and Works Act of 1911 as amended in 1924; the Industrial Conciliation Act (No. 11 of 1924); the Wage Act No. 27 of 1925; the Apprenticeship Act of 1922.

page 182 note 5 Cf. S. v. d. Horst, op. cit., chap. xiii.

page 182 note 6 As shown by the fact that the Select Committee on employment of Europeans in unskilled occupations on the railways in 1946 stated that 5,060 vacancies could not be filled.

page 182 note 7 High wages limited demand for skilled workers.

page 182 note 8 These low earnings are largely due to the inefficiency of migrant labour, the unwillingness of employers to train casuals, their poor health and hence low output, and the inefficiency of the employers in the use of low-wage and hence wastefully and badly employed labour.

page 183 note 1 As shown once more in their memo., quoted above, their opposition to urbanization is derived from two main sources. The Mines and Works Act prohibits the employment of pass-bearing Africans in any but unskilled operations. Thus the custom of the industry denies the employment of Africans in more skilled operations and largely determines, or has largely determined, their technique of production. It is not worth while to pay more for labour if labour is not going to be more productively employed, and a stabilized labour supply earning higher wages would therefore be more expensive. The second point is this. The life of the mines is limited, and a large proportion of the mines on the Witwatersrand are coming towards their end. The adoption of a different technique involving a higher degree of mechanization would involve a considerable capital outlay. Were the anticipated life of the mines long, or were it a question of beginning new operations with new methods, it might be an economical proposition. As it is, however, the outlay would be spread over only a limited period of working, and as such its cost would prove prohibitive, The lower grade mines in particular would find the costs difficult to meet, and rising working costs are already a potent factor in discouraging outlay on new machinery and modified techniques.

page 183 note 2 Recent appointment of the ex-Director of the liberal S.A. Institute of Race Relations as Labour Advised to the Oppenheimer interests is significant in this connexion.

page 183 note 3 Cf. Commission on Industrial and Agricultural Requirements of the Union; report No. 282 of the Board of Trade and Industries, cited above; various reports of the Social and Economic Planning Council, esp. no. 9.

page 183 note 4 Prof. Burrows, H. R., speech to United Council of Social Agencies, quoted Natal Daily News, 3 March 1947Google Scholar.