Native Life in South Africa [177]
archives give correct histories of native tribes for 500 years back, because their compilers invariably sought and obtained reliable evidence from Natives about themselves. But this Commission's Report (to mention but one instance among several inaccuracies) tells us, on page 27 of U.G. 25-'16, of "the original inhabitants of Moroka ward who had lived in Bechuanaland under the Paramount Chief Montsioa (sic). Their original chief was Sebuclare" (!)
No Barolong tribe ever had a chief by this name. The fact is, that Governments of to-day frequently publish unreliable native records, for they are mainly based on information obtained from self-styled experts, who, in South Africa, should always be white.
Again, it is not explained why the Commission publishes, in a permanent record, particulars of encumbrances on native farms such as we find on page 29 of the same volume. Is it to damage the credit of the native farmers? Supposing some of the hypothecations given in the "list of mortgaged native-owned farms in the Thaba Ncho District" were wiped off before the Report was issued, will it be fair to the native owners to read, say in 1999, that their farms are mortgaged for those amounts?
In the published evidence given before other Commissions questions put to the witnesses are usually printed along with the answers. This has not been done in the present instance, and consequently some of these replies are so clumsily put that the reader cannot even guess what the witness was answering. If the questions had also been printed, the whole Report might have been illuminating. It is interesting, for instance, to read what was apparently a lively dispute between the Commissioners and one witness -- Mr. J. G. Keyter, M.L.A., the arch-enemy of the blacks and one of the promoters of the whole trouble -- as to what is, or is not, the meaning of the Natives' Land Act. Indeed the various definitions and explanations of the Act, given by the Commissioners and some of the witnesses, contradict those previously given by the Union Government and Mr. Harcourt. And while the ruling whites, on the one hand, content themselves with giving contradictory definitions of their cruelty the native sufferers, on the other hand, give no definitions of legislative phrases nor explanations of definitions. All that they give expression to is their bitter suffering under the operation of what their experience has proved to be the most ruthless law that ever disgraced the white man's rule in British South Africa.
The Report and the evidence at any rate bear out the statement set forth in this book, namely, that the main object in view is not segregation, but the reduction of all the black subjects of the King from their former state of semi-independence to one of complete serfdom.
The Commission's Awards
The population of South Africa is very commonly overestimated. As a matter of fact there are in South Africa about one and a quarter million whites and four and a half million blacks. According to the Census of 1911, the exact figure is a million less than the population of London, -- viz., 5,973,394 -- scattered over an area of 143,000,000 morgen -- nearly ten times the size of England. A morgen is about 2 1/9 English acres.
But if we are to understand what is proposed, we would have to consider the position in the sub-continent under different heads: --
I. English or Urban Areas, inhabited by 660,000 whites and 800,000 blacks: 1 3/4 quarter million morgen; and
II. The remaining 141 1/4 million morgen, which the Commission would divide as follows: --
(a) NATIVE AREAS, for the Bantu and such other coloured races as are classed along with them numbering just about 4,000,000 SOULS: 18 1/4 MILLION MORGEN.
(b) EUROPEAN AREAS, or nearly the whole of Rural South Africa, for the occupation of 660,000 RURAL WHITES (mainly Boers): 123,000,000 MORGEN.
The English Areas (I) are not affected by the troubles which form
No Barolong tribe ever had a chief by this name. The fact is, that Governments of to-day frequently publish unreliable native records, for they are mainly based on information obtained from self-styled experts, who, in South Africa, should always be white.
Again, it is not explained why the Commission publishes, in a permanent record, particulars of encumbrances on native farms such as we find on page 29 of the same volume. Is it to damage the credit of the native farmers? Supposing some of the hypothecations given in the "list of mortgaged native-owned farms in the Thaba Ncho District" were wiped off before the Report was issued, will it be fair to the native owners to read, say in 1999, that their farms are mortgaged for those amounts?
In the published evidence given before other Commissions questions put to the witnesses are usually printed along with the answers. This has not been done in the present instance, and consequently some of these replies are so clumsily put that the reader cannot even guess what the witness was answering. If the questions had also been printed, the whole Report might have been illuminating. It is interesting, for instance, to read what was apparently a lively dispute between the Commissioners and one witness -- Mr. J. G. Keyter, M.L.A., the arch-enemy of the blacks and one of the promoters of the whole trouble -- as to what is, or is not, the meaning of the Natives' Land Act. Indeed the various definitions and explanations of the Act, given by the Commissioners and some of the witnesses, contradict those previously given by the Union Government and Mr. Harcourt. And while the ruling whites, on the one hand, content themselves with giving contradictory definitions of their cruelty the native sufferers, on the other hand, give no definitions of legislative phrases nor explanations of definitions. All that they give expression to is their bitter suffering under the operation of what their experience has proved to be the most ruthless law that ever disgraced the white man's rule in British South Africa.
The Report and the evidence at any rate bear out the statement set forth in this book, namely, that the main object in view is not segregation, but the reduction of all the black subjects of the King from their former state of semi-independence to one of complete serfdom.
The Commission's Awards
The population of South Africa is very commonly overestimated. As a matter of fact there are in South Africa about one and a quarter million whites and four and a half million blacks. According to the Census of 1911, the exact figure is a million less than the population of London, -- viz., 5,973,394 -- scattered over an area of 143,000,000 morgen -- nearly ten times the size of England. A morgen is about 2 1/9 English acres.
But if we are to understand what is proposed, we would have to consider the position in the sub-continent under different heads: --
I. English or Urban Areas, inhabited by 660,000 whites and 800,000 blacks: 1 3/4 quarter million morgen; and
II. The remaining 141 1/4 million morgen, which the Commission would divide as follows: --
(a) NATIVE AREAS, for the Bantu and such other coloured races as are classed along with them numbering just about 4,000,000 SOULS: 18 1/4 MILLION MORGEN.
(b) EUROPEAN AREAS, or nearly the whole of Rural South Africa, for the occupation of 660,000 RURAL WHITES (mainly Boers): 123,000,000 MORGEN.
The English Areas (I) are not affected by the troubles which form