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Land, labour and capital in Natal: The Natal Land and Colonisation Company 1860–19481
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2009
Extract
The history of the London-based Natal Land and Colonisation Company is explored against the background of the evolving political economy of rural Natal. In the early years of the colony, white-controlled farming operations consistently failed. The landholdings of bankrupt colonists passed into the hands of a small group of men with capital. In 1861 this group activated its links with financiers in Britain to float the Natal Land and Colonisation Company. The Company ‘bought’ 250,000 acres of surplus lands from them in return for an injection of metropolitan capital into productive operations to be carried out on the remaining mainly coastal lands, or into further speculative activity. In fact, white-controlled farming activity in the interior continued to stagnate. Money which the Company loaned to white farmers in the 1860s, secured as mortgages on their farms, was not repaid, and the Company took over the lands of the bankrupt until in 1874 it controlled 657,000 acres in Natal. Anxious for a sizeable and more reliable source of income, the Company, in common with some colonists, concentrated on extracting rent from Africans, as yet the only successful farming population of the Natal interior. The increasing importance of this source of income to the Company was rudely interrupted in the 1890s by a fundamental shift in the Natal political economy. New mining centres in South Africa looked to Natal to furnish some of their needs for raw material and labour. The balance of economic and political forces favoured those who demanded labour, not rent, from Natal Africans. The Company switched its capital in good time out of renting land to African farmers and into renting and property development in the growing urban areas of white South Africa. Its properties were brought within the empire of the Eagle Star Insurance Company in 1948.
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References
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52 The struggle dates from the early years of the British presence in Natal. Prior to Harry Smith's appointment as Governor at the Cape in 1847, West not only did his best to frustrate the efforts of the speculators, but an official commission upheld the vision of Natal's African population as free peasant producers of export crops and consumers of imported manufactures; C.O. 179/5 Report of the Natal Location Commission 30.3.1847, enclosure in Smith to Grey 17.7.1849. In 1848 Harry Smith both overrode West's objections to a liberalization of the terms on which land could be held, and stopped the work of the locations commission which had been setting aside the land for Natal's African population which might have made cash crop production a viable prospect; Welsh, Roots of Segregation, 15.
53 S.N.A. Misc. 1/1/11 no. 302 Shepstone to magistrate for Weenen 18.10.1861. This is not to say, however, that magistrates, whose interests were often closely linked to those of the farmers in their area, always carried out these instructions to the letter.
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58 Natal Witness, 1.4.1859.
59 Natal Witness, 22.7.1859.
60 Natal Archives MSS. acc. no. 209(a), Coqui to Watermeyer 5.1.1861.
61 London, Companies' House, 2066/1, Memorandum of Association of the Natal Land and Colonisation Company, registered 4.12.1860. A copy of this document is in Natal Archives, C.S.O. 137 no. 32/1861. It is conceivable that Thomson was connected to the Cape merchant firm which included a similar name. By 1861 Thomson was no longer a member of the board which had been strengthened by the addition of J. P. Brown-Westhead, an M.P., Manchester merchant and member of an absentee landowning family in Natal; William Miller, M.P.; and J. Gillespie of the Cape Town firm of James Barber and Co.; The Natal Land and Colonisation Company, The Colony of Natal, Compiled for the use of Emigrants from the Most Authentic Sources (London, 1861)Google Scholar, end papers. It seems to have been Company policy to use its directorships to maintain links with other metropolitan-based commercial interests, particularly those with imperial operations. The board in 1895, for example, was linked in this way to the South India Railway Company, the Van Diemans Land Company which operated in Australia, and the mighty Oceana Consolidated Company Ltd. whose land and mining interests were in the Transvaal, ; The Stock Exchange Year Book (London, 1890), 464Google Scholar; ibid. (1895), 808; Who Was Who 1916–1928 (London, n.d.), 586Google Scholar; Natal Archives, Harry Escombe Collection, section 25.
62 Memorandum of Association, op. cit.
63 Natal Parl. Papers, 238 no. 20, Private Bill incorporating the Natal Land and Colonisation Company in Natal.
64 Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’, Appendix II, p. 374Google Scholar. Kemp, ‘Jonas Bergtheil’, p. 120, gives a slightly lower figure.
65 Natal Land and Col. Co., The Colony of Natal, endpapers.
66 King, ‘Career of Adolph Coqui’, p. 70.
67 Ibid., pp. 69–72.
68 Coqui tried to dispose of some of his holdings as early as April 1862 but was persuaded by the Company to wait until June; ibid., p. 74.
69 The three leading Cape and Natal shareholders on 10.5.1862 were A. Coqui with 15,000 shares, P. G. Van der Byl with 2,850 shares and J. Bergtheil with 1,332 shares. There seem to have been ten other colonial shareholders at this time; London, Companies' House, 2066/1, list of shareholders on 10.5.1862. In the next few years only Van der Byl seems to have increased his interest in the Company. In 1866, 22,373 shares were registered in his name, presumably reflecting further land sales to the Company; ibid., list of shareholders on 31.7.1866. By 1870 less than 600 shares were held by Cape or Natal figures; ibid., list of shareholders on 16.8.1870.
70 Osborn, , Valiant Harvest, 62Google Scholar. The average price paid for upland was 7/6 an acre, and £2 an acre for coastland; Kemp, ‘Jonas Bergtheil’, p. 120.
71 Natal Archives, P. H. Zietsman Papers, Fraser to Zietsman 18.3.1889. By this date no property was registered in the Orange Free State under his name; ibid.
72 See share lists of the Company in London, Companies' House, 2066/1.
73 Natal Archives MSS. ace. no. 209(b) Coqui to Watermeyer 4.2.1861; Natal Land and Col. Co., The Colony of Natal, 60. The management committee in Natal in the early years of the Company comprised Behrens, Bergtheil, Kahts and Vause; Kemp, ‘Jonas Bergtheil’, p. 213. Behrens had been a minor land speculator since before the Cape annexation of Natal.
74 Natal Archives MSS. ace. no. 209(c), Memorandum of Agreement 31.12.1861.
75 Ibid. 209(d), J. T. Mackenzie and F. C. Drummond to Bergtheil and Behrens 4.8.1862.
76 Moodie, D. C. F. (ed.), John Dunn, Cetywayo and the Three Generals (Pietermaritzburg, 1886), 57.Google Scholar
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78 Natal Archives G.H. 69/213, Memorandum of the Directors of the Natal Land and Colonisation Company to Carnarvon, March 1876, in Carnarvon to Bulwer 26.4.1876; The Times, 19.5.1864; Natal Witness, 30.1.1866; Natal Cotton Industry, Leverton, 26–7.
79 Memo of the Directors, op. cit. Leverton, , Natal Cotton Industry, 27Google Scholar and Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial Land Settlement’, p. 373Google Scholar give slightly later dates for the bankruptcy of the Natal Plantations Company.
80 The Natal Central Railway Company and the Natal Coal Company. For these schemes and their links to the parent Company see Memorandum of the Directors, op. cit., Report of F. B. Elliot, op. cit. preface and pp. I, 7; Report with Minutes and Evidence of Select Committee on the Bill Empowering the Natal Central Railway Co. to Construct a Railway Between the Port and Pietermaritzburg (Pietermaritzburg, 1864), 53, 58, 62, 66Google Scholar; Minutes and Evidence of the Select Committee on the Bill for Empowering the Natal Coal Co. to Purchase Lands, Mine, and Construct a Railway from Pietermaritzburg to the Klip River Coalfields (Pietermaritzburg, 1864), preface and pp. 4, 7.Google Scholar
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82 For the railway scheme see Report of Select Committee on Projects For Railway Construction (Pietermaritsburg, 1871), 5, 10Google Scholar. For the immigration scheme see Natal Parl. Papers, 93, no. 3 Newcastle to Scott 7.3.1863.
83 Scott had opposed both; Report of Select Committee, op. cit. Natal Parl. Papers, 93, no. 3 Scott to Newcastle 1.12.1862.
84 Company letters to shareholders 17.12.1861 and 11.2.1862 in the possession of G. W. McDonald, Natal. See also The Times, 27.2.1862 and 26.4.1862.
85 Memorandum of the Directors, op. cit. Loans had been started for this purpose in 1864; Osborn, , Valiant Harvest, 67.Google Scholar
86 Spohr, O. H. (ed.), The Natal Diaries of W. H. I. Bleek 1855–56 (Cape Town, 1965), 36.Google Scholar
87 Hurwitz, N. for the University of Natal, Natal Regional Survey Vol. XII: Agriculture in Natal 1860–1950 (Cape Town, 1957), 10.Google Scholar
88 Natal Archives, Bird Papers Vol. III, ‘Reminiscences of William Leslie’, unpublished MSS. n.d.
89 Memorandum of the Directors, op. cit.
90 The Times 16.7.1866, 13.8.1867, 25.8.1868.
91 Memorandum of the Directors, op. cit.; The Times 25.8.1868.
92 Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial Land Settlement’, p. 374Google Scholar. Other sources give slightly higher figures. Memorandum of the Directors, op. cit. gives 688,000 acres in 1876; The Times gave an approximate figure of 675,000 acres on 16.2.1871 and 668,910 on 13.5.1872. Christopher draws attention to the Company's rather opportunistic accounting procedures which might have led to the figures of the Company differing from those of the Land Registry; Christopher, , ‘Colonial Land Settlement’, p. 374Google Scholar n. For a specific example of foreclosure by the Company in this period see Osborn, , Valiant Harvest, 307.Google Scholar
93 The Times, 15.2.1867, 24.8.1869, 17.8.1870, 13.5.1872, 1.5.1873.
94 Report of the Natal Coffee Commission (Pietermaritzburg, 1881) 2, 4Google Scholar; Report on the Condition of Indian Immigrants (Pietermaritzburg, 1872), 29–30Google Scholar; The Times, 10.5.1871, 14.5.1877, 6.7.1874, 23.12.1880, 23.12.1881, 26.5.1883; Stock Exchange Year Book (London, 1880), 202Google Scholar; ibid. (1885), 402.
95 Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’, p. 378.Google Scholar
96 A subsidiary of the Company was the South African Gold Fields Exploration Company founded in London in 1868. Though it carried out successful explorations in Matabeleland, it seems to have lost the battle for the control of the northern gold fields to the London and Limpopo Mining Company; Memorandum of the Directors, op. cit.; Tabler, E. C., Pioneers of Rhodesia (Cape Town, 1966), 146–9Google Scholar. Another subsidiary, the Natal Prospecting Company, was formed in the late 1880s to carry out mineral explorations on the Company's Natal lands; Stock Exchange Year Book (London, 1890), 464.Google Scholar
97 The Times 6.7.1874, 15.6.1878;Braby's Natal Directory (1927), 566.
98 For a detailed analysis of the Company's land sales see Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’, pp. 373–82.Google Scholar
99 Morris, D. R., The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation (London, 1966), 315Google Scholar; De Kiewiet, C. W., The Imperial Factor in South Africa: A Study in Politics and Economics (Cass, 1965), 233.Google Scholar
100 The Times, 25.5.1877.
101 The Times, 23.12.1880.
102 Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’, pp. 376–7Google Scholar. The Company's holdings in Alexandra had increased between 1870 and 1880, but by 1890 had fallen back to approximately the 1870 level.
103 Memorandum of the Directors, op. cit.; Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’ pp. 374, 376Google Scholar; The Times, 18.5.1876, 25.5.1877, 23.12.1880.
104 SirRobinson, John, Notes on Natal: An Old Colonist's Book for New Settlers (Durban, 1872), xxv–vi.Google Scholar
105 London, Companies' House, 2066/8, Directors' Report to Shareholders of the Natal Land and Colonisation Company 22.5.1935; Lugg, H. C., Historic Natal and Zululand (Pietermaritzburg, 1949), 9Google Scholar; Lockhart, J. C. and Woodhouse, C. M., Rhodes (London, 1963), 49–53.Google Scholar
106 ‘Farming in the Richmond District’ in The Agricultural Journal III, 25 (15.2.1901), 777.Google Scholar
107 Report of the Natal Lands Commission, With Appendix and Digest, February 1902 (Pietermaritzburg, n.d.) p. 190 evidence of Boast.Google Scholar
108 McLeod, Ellen to Louisa, 31.1.1875Google Scholar in Gordon, (ed.), Dear Louisa, 188–9.Google Scholar
109 P.R.O. C.O. 179/116 Shepstone to Carnarvon 22.9.1874.
110 For examples of this kind of relationship in the 1860s see Natal Archives, S.N.A. I/3/II no. 99 Magistrate of Weenen to S.N.A. in reply to circular of 30.5.1862; S.N.A. I/3/13 no. 30 Return of Natives Living on Farms in the Tugela Division, Victoria, 22.8.1863. For the 18705 see S.N.A. 1/3/21 no. 499a Magistrate of Newcastle, Annual Report for 1870, 20.2.1871; S.N.A. 1/3/24 ibid. for 1872, 14.10.1873; Report on the Administration of the Putili Fund (Pietermaritzburg, 1877), 1–3Google Scholar; Natal Blue Book on Native Affairs 1879–1882 (Pietermaritzburg, 1884), 10, 42.Google Scholar
111 Report of the Commission into the Working of the Land and Immigration Board (Pietermaritzburg, 1885), 4.Google Scholar
112 Proceedings of the Natal Affairs Commission 1881–1882 (Pietermaritzburg, 1882), 77, evidence of Nicholson.Google Scholar
113 Natal Archives, Fannin Papers Vol. II, ‘Record of a Journey to Umhlali’, unpublished MSS. August 1868. On this occasion Fannin was assisting Townsend, the usual rent collector for the area. They refused payment in cattle in lieu of cash rents. It is possible that they were collecting on behalf of the Natal Land and Colonisation Company itself. I have not yet had a chance to check this point against the records of the Company held by the Natal Archives and by Mr G. W. McDonald.
114 Ibid.
115 The first clear reference I have found to rent tenancy relationships between Africans and the Company dates from 1876; memorandum of the Directors, op. cit. There seems little reason to doubt, however, that this kind of relationship had existed for some time.
116 Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’, p. 377, table 142.Google Scholar
117 Correspondence Relative to Eviction from Crown Lands (Pietermaritzburg, 1883), 18Google Scholar; Proceedings of the N.N.A.C. 1881–8, 351Google Scholar, evidence of James Ralfe.
118 Calculated from figures cited by Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’, p. 377, table 142.Google Scholar
119 It had been reduced to £39,000 at the start of the year, but rose again to £50,000 as some of the outstanding preference share dividends were paid off; The Times, 17.3.1892. See also ibid. 9.4.1897.
120 The Times, 17.8.1870, 7.5.1890, 17.3.1892.
121 The Times, 19.5.1884; The Stock Exchange Year Book (London, 1885), 402.Google Scholar
122 The Times, 17.3.1892, 2.4.1892; The Stock Exchange Year Book (London, 1905), 706Google Scholar. The 1903 dividend seems to have been the highest paid by the Company in its history. See entries for the Company in ibid., 1900, 1905, 1910 and 1920 editions.
123 The National Provincial Bank and Nathan Rothschild were two of these; London, Companies' House, 2066/2 list of shareholders on 5.6.1890; ibid. 2066/4 list of share holders on 13.5.1902. Unfortunately, only occasional returns of the Company's share holders are available in London.
124 The Times, 7.5.1891.
125 Natal Land Commission, 43, evidence of Rycroft; The Times, 22.4.1910.
126 Taxation was another. See esp., Axelson, C. E., ‘A History of Taxation in Natal Prior to Union’ M.Com. thesis, University of Natal–South Africa, 1934.Google Scholar
127 Proceedings of the N.N.A.C., 1881–2, 286, evidence of T. Shepstone.
128 For the sharp fall in the acreage controlled by the Company after 1900 see Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’, p. 375, fig. 57.Google Scholar
129 By 1898 the Klip River coalfields were already employing 2032 Africans and 975 Indians, most of the latter under indenture; Report of the Natal Coal Commission (Pietermaritzburg, 1898), 5.Google Scholar
130 The total railway mileage in Natal in 1880 was just under 100 miles. In 1909, it had reached 1,008, and in 1923, 1,462 miles; Campbell, E. D., The Birth and Development of the Natal Railways (Pietermaritzburg, 1951), 134, 140, 170.Google Scholar
131 See, for example, Natal Archives S.N.A. Confidential 1/4/10 C12/1902; Natal Blue Book on Native Affairs 1879–1882, 126Google Scholar; Natal Farmers' Magazine, 21.4.1897, p. 89.Google Scholar
132 For general attacks on the Company and others engaged in African renting operations see, for example, European Immigration to Natal: The Experiences of Practical Farmers (Pietermaritzburg, 1890), 5–9Google Scholar; Report of the Committee of the Land and Immigration Board on the Drafting of a Comprehensive Scheme of European Immigration (Pietermaritzburg, 1891), 6Google Scholar; Report of the Immigration and Crown Lands Commission (Pietermaritzburg, 1892), 7, 16Google Scholar; Natal Land Commission, 13, evidence of Samuelson, S. O.; Natal Farmers' Magazine I, I (14.1.1893), 7Google Scholar; The Agricultural Journal XI, 5 (29.5.1908), 584–94.Google Scholar
133 Report on Crown Lands and European Immigration by the Colonial Secretary (Pietermaritzburg, 1876), 4–7Google Scholar; The Times, 23.3.1876.
134 Some idea of the extent of operations of this kind can be gauged from the fact that in 1895, in the two districts of Impendhle and Klip River alone, there were 83 farms amounting to 260,000 acres which were occupied by African rent-paying tenants. Alexandra division had 65,000 acres occupied by 1651 rent-paying kraals, ; Natal Blue Book on Native Affairs 1895 (Pietermaritzburg, 1896), 43, 73, 125Google Scholar. The Brown-Westhead family, which had furnished the Company with one of its first directors, also had substantial private interests in African renting operations; Natal Land Commission, 33, evidence of Hyslop, 39, evidence of Laughton. See also Hattersley, , British Settlement, 87Google Scholar. Lands sold by the Company were still being occupied by Africans who now furnished their rents to new landlords; Natal Land Commission, 43, evidence of Rycroft. The instalments on the purchase price of Crown Lands were also found to be paid by colonists subletting to Africans; ibid., 91 evidence of Parkin, 183, evidence of Mathews. Rents at this time seem to have ranged between £1 and £7 with an average of about £2. 10s. per hut. The magistrates were regularly being called upon to enforce rent payment or to evict defaulters.
135 Natal Land Commission, 29, evidence of Hyslop. For reference to earlier attempts to introduce taxation of this kind see ibid, (Report) 12. As late as 1906 a majority could not be raised in the Natal legislature for an absentee tax bill; The Weekend Advertiser 20.4.1929. See also Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, 131 n. The threat of such taxation, however, does seem to have been one of the factors leading the Company to sell off its lands; Natal Land Commission, 34, evidence of Hathorn and Hyslop.
136 Natal Lands Commission, 86–7, evidence of Bazley, 99 evidence of Aiken. Indian smallholders were also buying land by this time; ibid., 218.
137 London, Companies' House, 2066/4 and /8; Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’, p. 377, table 142Google Scholar; The Times, 2.4.1892, 8.3.1893, 9.4.1897, 4.4.1901, 30.4.1902, 13.4.1903, 1.4.1904.
138 Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’Google Scholar, ibid.
139 S.N.A. 1/1/324, 2121/1905, interview of Samuelson, S. O. with messengers of the Chief Kambi 24.8.1905.Google Scholar
140 S.N.A. 1/1/321, 1428/1905, deposition of the Chief Ndunge 14.6.1905. Wattles had a twin value both as a source of tanning extract and, more especially, as a source of pitprops for the mining industry.
141 Natal Blue Book on Native Affairs 1905 (Pietermaritzburg, 1906), report of Alexandra magistrate, p. 13.Google Scholar
142 S.N.A. 1/1/318, 1293/1905, interview of Chief Sibanu with the Secretary for Native Affairs, 2.8.1905. For a specific case of eviction from lands which had belonged to the Natal Land and Colonisation Company see S.N.A. 1/1/406, 2177/1908.
143 Inkanyiso 24.9.1891, 16.7.1891; Natal Archives C.S.O. Confidential 2576 C13/1898 memo of Foxon 20.1.1898; S.N.A. 1270/1905 Governor to Prime Minister; S.N.A. 1/1/327, 2579/1905; Natal Blue Book on Native Affairs 1905, II, 30, 42, 71; S.N.A. 372/1906 Governor to Prime Minister and enclosures 22.2.1906; Report of the Natal Native Affairs Commission 1906–7 (Pietermaritzburg, 1907), 3, 31–2Google Scholar; S.N.A. 1/1/396 1051 and 1051/1908.
144 S.N.A. 1133/1906 Binns to Samuelson 10.4.1906; S.N.A. 2823/1906; S.N.A. 851/1907.
145 S.N.A. 1/1/327, 2579/1905; Natal Blue Book on Native Affairs 1904 (Pietermaritzburg, 1905), 13Google Scholar; ibid. (1905), 30. J. W. McKenzie was one of the main recruiters; S.N.A. 1/1/317 410/1905. In Nov. 1905 he had 2,250 Natal Africans contracted out to employers, most of them mineowners; S.N.A. 1/1/330, 3148/1905. See also S.N.A. 61/1906 and 1284/1907. In order to circumvent the Touts Act of 1901, which was supposed to prevent labour recruitment for employers outside Natal, McKenzie himself was technically regarded as the employer. The Act was repealed in 1908. In the period 1896–1905, there was never less than 16,500 Natal Africans leaving each year to work in the Transvaal; S.N.A. 1/1/325, 2212/1905. The operations of labour recruiters were crucial to the mineowners since those Africans travelling to the Transvaal on their own account tended to avoid labour in the mines; Natal Blue Book on Native Affairs 1904, iii.
146 S.N.A. Conf. 1/4/8, 80/1901; S.N.A. Conf. 1/4/12, 75/1903; S.N.A. 1/1/324, 1912/1905 private letter of Von Gerard, assistant magistrate at Umvoti, to S. O. Samuelson 21.7.1905; S.N.A. 78/1906 memo of civil actions against Chief Bambatha since 1901, 26.1.1906; S.N.A. 77/1906 Botha to S.N.A. 5.2.1906. For the distribution of the people of Chief Bambatha see Natal Blue Book on Native Affairs 1905, appendix 5. I do not know whether any of Bambatha's people were or had been tenants of the Company.
147 Natal Blue Book on Native Affairs 1905, op. cit. p. 152.
148 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, 77–8, 122, 140.
149 S.N.A. 1406/1906.
150 Marks, , Reluctant Rebellion, 123–4Google Scholar. The obstacles at this stage worked mainly in respect of Crown Lands. For their effect in practice see S.N.A. 879/1907; S.N.A. 3541/1907; Ilanga Lase Natal 4, 5, 1906; ibid. 10.5.1907 translation in S.N.A. 1375/1907. By 1907 sufficient loopholes remained for the acreage purchased by Africans to have risen to 191,900 acres; S.N.A. 786/1907.
151 For the detailed history of the Rebellion see Marks, , Reluctant RebellionGoogle Scholar. Though there is perhaps a sense in which the Rebellion could be seen as the confirmation of Shepstone's prophesy, as Marks points out, the private lands issue was only one of a complex of factors involved. The districts of Nkandla and Mapamulo, for example, two of the main centres of the Rebellion, contained no private lands.
152 S.N.A. 3767/1907 Natal Land and Colonisation Company to S.N.A. 17.12.1907. The letter points out that the Company now had a lot of destitute women and children on its lands because the menfolk were either dead or imprisoned because of the Rebellion.
153 The Times, 16.4.1909, 2.10.1909, 22.4.1910.
154 Christopher, A. J., ‘Colonial land settlement’, p. 377, table 142.Google Scholar
155 The Times, 3.4.1912.
156 The Times, 12.4.1912.
157 Ibid.
158 The Times, 4.4.1913.
159 Statement of M. J. Apthorp, S.N.A. Cape Town 28.4.1915 in Ilanga Lase Natal 4.6.1915; Natal Archives C.N.C. 816/1913 VIII, 124, p. 4, S.N.A. reply to question at conference of Natal magistrates concerning the operation of the Land Act 21.10.1913.
160 Statement, op. cit.; Circular letter of S.N.A. Cape Town to magistrates and officers of the Native Affairs Department reproduced in Times of Natal, 31.12.1913 and Natal Witness, 3.1.1914.
161 Natal Archives C.N.C. 816/1913 VIII, Transcript of magistrates' confidence with the S.N.A. and C.N.C, to discuss the working of the Land Act, Durban, 27.10.1913, p. 17 statement of L. Moe, magistrate of Alfred division.
162 J. L. Dube's reply to the South African Society reproduced in Ilanga Lase Natal, 4.6.1915.
163 For the increase in labour tenancy relationships see Natal Regional Survey XII, pp. 28–9; Smith, 41; Report of the Native Farm Labour Committee 1937–39 cited in Roberts, M., Labour in the Farm Economy (Johannesburg, 1959), preface and p. iii.Google Scholar
164 Natal Archives MSS. acc. no. 280, Address by D. L. Smit, S.N.A., Delivered at Pietermaritzburg 3.9.1935.
165 Dube, , Ilanga Lase Natal, 4.6.1915Google Scholar. This is exactly what was taking place; C.N.C. 816/1913 VII, Transcript, op. cit., p. 5 statement of A. J. S. Maritz, magistrate of Lower Tugela; C.N.C. 816/1913 III and IV, various correspondence.
166 London, Companies' House, 2066/4 and /8.
168 Ibid. 2066/8. The Company's share dividend picked up to 7 per cent in 1947.
169 I am very grateful to Mr G. W. McDonald, a former general manager of the Natal Land and Colonisation Company, for this account of the Company's demise, and for other assistance rendered; private communication 8.1.1974. See also London, Companies' House, 2066/4 and /8.
170 The Eagle Star Insurance Company Ltd., Statement of Accounts for the Year Ending 31st December 1972 (London, 1973), 24 note 18Google Scholar. Eagle Star, through their South African bankers, Hill Samuel (S.A.) Ltd., have declined to furnish the author with any information concerning the current or recent operations of British African Properties Ltd.; private communication 30.5.1974.
171 As Francis Wilson points out, after the Land Act there was a tendency, encouraged by further legislation, for the labour period demanded under the labour tenancy system to increase. A further stage was reached after World War II when farmers came to insist on their regular workers becoming full-time wage labourers, denied access to other sources of employment for part of the year, and with little or no rights to the use of the employer's land; Oxford History, II (Oxford, 1971), 141, 155–6. Labour tenancy relationships were legally abolished in 1958; Natal Mercury 17.10.1972. Full-time labour is augmented at certain times of the year with migrant labour from the Bantustans and other parts of southern Africa, and from the labourers' families. See, for example, Natal Mercury, 2.12.1972; The Guardian, 12.3.1973 and 14.6.1973. A combination of restrictions on labour organization, strikes, and mobility help to maintain wages and conditions at a low level; Natal Mercury, 30.11.1972; Sunday Times (London), 25.3.1973; The Guardian 12.3.1973 and 28.3.1973.
172 Natal Witness 16.3.1914, letter of ‘Trypon-Blue’, Estcourt.
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