Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
In 1904 just over 6 per cent of South Africa's Afrikaners lived in the towns. By 1936 the percentage had risen to 44, and 1960 to 76 per cent. Slightly less than half of this number live in smaller centres, regarded for census purposes as ‘urban’ although most of them are dorps or hamlets.1 The causes of this demographic revolution go back to the simultaneous crisis of farming and the rise of mining and other industries that led to the growth of towns. Rural poverty pushed people off the land while the possibilities of earning higher incomes drew them to the towns. In the folk-lore of Afrikanerdom, towns—particularly Johannesburg—were evil places: they were regarded as the seats of an ‘English—Jewish’ capitalism that was bent on ploughing the Afrikaner under, and as hotbeds of vice and crime.2
Page 265 note 1 Sixth Census of the Population of the Union of South Africa (Pretoria, 1938)Google Scholar, which gives figures for 1904 and 1936; Population Census, 6th September 5960 (Pretoria, 1963)Google Scholar. For an analysis of these figures, see Report of the Commission of Inquiry into European Occupancy of the Rural Areas (Pretoria, 1959–1960), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar
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Page 266 note 1 Pauw, S., Die Beroepsarbeid van die Afrikaner in die Stad (Stellenbosch, 1946), passim.Google Scholar
Page 266 note 2 Plessis, E. P. du (ed.), 'N Volk Staan Op—die Ekonomiese Volkskongres en Daarna (Cape Town, 1964), p. 131.Google Scholar
Page 267 note 1 Scholtz, G. D., Het die Afrikaanse Volk'n Toekoms? (Johannesburg, 1954), p. 34.Google Scholar
Page 267 note 2 The Star (Johannesburg), 9 01 1902.Google Scholar
Page 267 note 3 Coetzee, Abel, Die Opkoms van die Afrikaanse Kultuurgedagte aan die Rand, 1886–1936 (Johannesburg, 1938), pp. 392–3.Google Scholar
Page 268 note 1 Report of the Commission of Inquiry into European Occupancy of the Rural Areas (Pretoria, 1959–1960), paras. 48–50.Google Scholar
Page 268 note 2 Die Burger (Cape Town), 18 11 1933.Google Scholar
Page 268 note 3 Grosskopf, J. F. W., Rural Impoverishment and Rural Exodus, vol. I of the Report of the Carnegie Commission (Stellenbosch, 1932), p. 17.Google Scholar
Page 268 note 4 Scholtz, op. cit. p. 107.
Page 268 note 5 Berg, Willem van der, Reisigers na Nêrens (Cape Town, 1946), pp. 80–1.Google Scholar
Page 269 note 1 Scholtz, op. cit. p. 81.
Page 269 note 2 Jenks, Christopher, ‘Is it all Doctor Spock's Fault?’, in New York Times Magazine, 3 03 1968.Google Scholar
Page 269 note 3 For some evidence of structural changes in Afrikaner family life, see Cronje, G. and Venter, J. D., Die Pairiargale Familie (Cape Town, 1958), pp. 262 ff.Google Scholar
Page 270 note 1 Mayer, Philip, Townsmen or Tribesmen? (Cape Town, 1961), pp. 90 ff.Google Scholar
Page 270 note 2 van Wyk, S., Die Afrikaner in die Beroepslewe van die Stad (Pretoria, 1968), p. 229.Google Scholar It should be noted that these are estimates and must be regarded as approximate only.
Page 270 note 3 Volkshandel (Pretoria), 06 1967, p. iii.Google Scholar
Page 270 note 4 van Wyk, op. cit. p. 229.
Page 271 note 1 du Plessis, op. cit. p. 234.
Page 271 note 2 Pretorius, Gert, in The Cape Argus (Cape Town), 28 03 1968.Google Scholar
Page 271 note 3 Bibliographical material derived from Ackerman, H. L. P. (ed.), Wie is Wie in SuidAfrika (Johannesburg), the South African ‘Who's Who’, published annually since 1958.Google Scholar
Page 272 note 1 Hartman, Wim, ‘Dienuwe Afrikaner’, in Huisgenoot (Cape Town), 28 05 and 4 06 1965.Google Scholar
Page 272 note 2 Richard, Dirk, ‘Na my Mening’, in Dagbreek (Johannesburg), 5 05 1968.Google Scholar
Page 273 note 1 Richard, ibid. 28 June 1968.
Page 273 note 2 For an amusing account of Pretoria's peculiarities, see Louw, N. P. van.Wyk, ‘Só Broei Hulle Mekaar Warm’, in Die Beeld (Johannesburg), 14 07 1968.Google Scholar
Page 273 note 3 Jaap, Marais M. P., ‘Liberalisme: so bedreig dit ons’, in Dagbreek, 24 03 1968.Google Scholar
Page 274 note 1 Quoted in The Cape Times (Cape Town), 10 07 1967.Google Scholar
Page 274 note 2 Hofstadter, Richard, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (New York, 1965), p. 51.Google Scholar
Page 274 note 3 Greshoff, C. J., Sunday Times (Johannesburg), 10 09 1967.Google Scholar
Page 274 note 4 Progress (Cape Town), 03 1967, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar
Page 275 note 1 Personal communication from an English-speaking businessman to the writer.
Page 275 note 2 The South African evidence corroborates H. Blumer's hypothesis that industry adapts to the system of race relations, rather than the reverse; see his essay in Hunter, G. (ed.), Industrialisation and Race Relations (London, 1965).Google Scholar
Page 275 note 3 Letter from D. J. du. Plessis in Die Beeld, 14 September 1968.
Page 276 note 1 A. B. du Toit, ‘Verligtes het die Inisiatief’, ibid. 10 June 1968.