The population of South Africa has been formed by a series of migrations, all of them, if we except the prehistoric wanderings of the Bushmen and Hottentots, within recent times. The Native Africans came down from the central lakes within recent ‘saga’ memory. Their genealogies do not, of course, give dates. But probably 400 years covers the main movement. Among them came the invading Dutch and British. Other European races and, in large numbers, the Jewish people followed. There is a considerable number of Greeks and Syrians who, especially the latter but even to some extent the former, occupy a borderline position on the edge of the South African concept of ‘European’. Into this mixture large numbers of Indians and Malays, and a small number of Chinese, were imported.

It would take many thousand words to describe the mere categorisation of South African population, in which Natives, Coloureds, Asiatics and Europeans have each a separate position, and each their sub-divisions. So all that can be done for the purpose of this article, which is to give South African illustrations of the social-moral effects of movement of population, is to take certain special points of interest and let the many-sided background suggest itself in dealing with them.

To begin with, South Africa has no deported populations, no physically crossed immigrants. The only people who might be so called are the Jews, who are in a sense involuntary immigrants wherever they are. But their condition in South Africa is not sufficiently different from elsewhere to be of special interest.