The History of Race Relations in South AfricaT. R. H. DavenportŁ4INTRODUCTORY COMPARISONSHistorians do not solve social problems,Indeed it is even possible that they may havea sordid professional interest in keeping themunsolved. They prefer the society which in theChinese proverb 'has been through interestingtimes', rather than the lucky country whichhas no history at all. More seriously I believethat the function of historians is to be not somuch that of direct social analysis as that ofhelping people to reflect; and the objects of thatreflection are the unique situations which give afaithful expression, voice or texture to theevents we are trying to understand. The historyof race relations in South Africa is an enor-mous area; so instead of trying to cover thewhole of it let us look at a few representativeand illuminating situations, beginning with thestory of Eva.Eva was a much valued interpreter in theservice of the Dutch East India Company. TheJournal of the Company had quite a lot to sayabout her. For example, on 16 November1663:Eva who speaks Dutch perfectly hasthis evening gone off with her twochildren, procreated by a European,without our exactly knowing the reason.This woman is certainly born of Hotten-too parents, but has since her childhoodbeen educated in the house of Mr.Riebeeck, and brought into Christianity.Last year she was baptised.On 22 November 1663 Eva is reported to bestaying in the country with a freeman namedTielman Hendrikz: 'We doubt if we shall fetchher back, as this lewd vixen has often played usthis trick.' But she in fact returned two dayslater, and after a further five months on 26April 1664, it is announced that 'Eva is en-gaged to be married to Pieter van Meerhof,the first marriage contracted here accordingto Christian usage with a native', the Councilof Policy having given its approval on 12 Apriland promoted van Meerhof to the rank ofsurgeon. The couple did not wait long, for alittle marriage feast was given on 2 June 1664in the Commander's house. Eva was accom-modated on Robben Island with her husbandand children Š there was nothing suspiciousabout that. All of these children may have beenby van Meerhof, though this is by no meanscertain. Her husband was later sent on an ex-pedition to the Indian Ocean, but tragedy hitthe family when as reported in the Journal ofthe 27 February 1668, that is less than fouryears after their marriage, van Meerhof wasmurdered in Madagascar. The consequencewas more than sad; almost exactly a year laterthe Journal records on 8 February 1669:in the evening the three children be-gotten by the late surgeon Pieter vanMeerhof out of the female HottentooEva, appear in the hall naked and des-titute, the eldest sending in word that hismother being quite drunk had with allher household things and bedding goneto the Hottentoos, and that in their homewhich had been prepared and finallyfurnished for her in the house of theold pottery she had left nothing behind,in the shape of food or clothing or other-wise . . . This afternoon in consequenceof her excessive drunkeness and hershameful behaviour in the hall at thedinner table of the Commander she hadbeen severely reprimanded and advisedto live a better and more civilised life.The medicine had evidently been too strong.At the news of her flight, it was decided toput the custody of her children in the hands ofJan Reynierszoon, a deacon of the church,and his wife. Meanwhile Eva, 'that Hottentotpig', was found again drunk and disorderly andimprisoned in the Fort. She was sent back toRobben Island on 26 March. After a furtherfour years about which we have no details sheemerges again. On 28 July 1673 she bringsanother baby forward for baptism. A year anda day later came the last entry of all, on 29July "1674:This day departed this life a certainfemale Hottentoo named Eva long agotaken from the African brood in her ten-der childhood by the Honourable vanRiebeeck and educated in his house, andbeing thus transformed from a femaleHottentoo almost into a Netherlandwoman was married to a certain chiefsurgeon of the Residency by whom shehad three children. Since his death, how-ever, she had brought forward as manyillegitimate children and for the rest ledsuch an irregular life that for a longwhile the desire would have existed ofgetting rid of her, had it not been forthe hope of the conversion of this brutalaboriginal which was always hoveringbetween.There is quality of real compassion, I think,about that unfulfilled conditional: 'The desirewould have existed of getting r!d of her hadit not been ..."Very nearly three hundred years lateranother matrimonial tragedy from the samedistrict, but this time the marriage wasbroken not by the death of one of thepartners, but as a direct consequence ofthe law of the land. It should be explained,so that the following extract can be under-stood, that unless a man and his wifeboth qualify in terms of long residence, usuallyfifteen years, to live in South African UrbanAreas under the Bantu Urban Areas Act, thereis no guarantee that they will be allowed to livetogether save in the Bantu Homelands. Jn June1971, the ladies of the Black Sash Office inCape Town reported for the second lime onthe case of Mrs. B. M. whose initials ratherthan her name were given for security reasons.She had been required to leave Cape 1 own andsettle at Nqamakwe in the Transkei two yearsearlier and as a result of this she and herhusband who continued to live in Cape Townhad drifted apart. The report goes on:At first her husband supported her butnow he is no longer interested, he hasanother wife and two new children. Thisis B's third visit to Cape Town fromNqamakwe since her resettlement. Theauthorities refuse to allow her to remainhere to work to support her six childrenand insist that she returns to Nqamakwe.They have been most helpful and per-sistent in their efforts to make herhusband build her a house at Nqamakweand support her and the six children,but he is not interested in a wife andfamily who live 700 miles away. He hastold her this in writing. The break-up ofthis marriage is to our certain knowledgethe result of the enforced separation.Her husband has worked in Cape Townfor the South African Railways andHarbours since 1951, and when Mrs.B. M. was re-settled she had herselflived here continuously for 17 years, butit was not quite 15 years since she firstregistered in 1950 so that she didn'tqualify technically Š it is now five yearssince we have watched the marriage be-ing broken by Government policy.Two matrimonial situations. Eva was almostif not quite unique. Mrs. B. M. could beparalleled many times. Eva belongs to the earlysalad days of cultural contact: Mrs B. M. to thetired, frightened present. I suppose the moststriking difference between the two stories isthe humanity of the former and the austeremonumental insensitivity which underlies thelatter. But there is more to it than that. Inthe first story it is incidental that Eva wasblack, in that neither the blackness of her skinnor the error of her ways was allowed to affectthe fact of her acceptance. She had been ac-cepted on merit; the quality of her service to theCompany was quite considerable (you can seethat from van Riebeeck's Journal), and shecontinued to be accepted for the duration ofher tragic life, because the ruling communityto which she had been admitted could not bringitself to write her off. Mrs. B. M. was the wrongcolour and had been written off, the victim ofa law that was made by people who mighthave imagined but did not know her circum-stances, and was administered by others whowere not allowed to care about them. Onewonders why it is that injustice in historyis so often committed by proxy.THE FRONTIERA formative influence in the developmentof race relations in South Africa was the fron-tier. That moving area of settlement on thehither edge, not of free land as F. J. Turnerwrote, but of contested land where rival cul-tures battled it out for possession. There aremany frontiers in the heroic age of South Afri-can history, and I shall only choose one, andthat one of the least discussed, because in myview it affords a rich variety of illustrativematerial to emphasise the many moods offrontier conflict. I refer to the frontier betweenBushman and Trekboer. In the very earlyeighteenth century conflicts between Trekboerand Bushmen were taking place not far fromPaarl, say 35 miles from Cape Town. At thetime of the first British occupation in the1790s the troubled areas had moved 100 milesinland to the region of Ceres and the KoueBokkeveld, 70 years later to the dry region be-yond Victoria West, perhaps 300 miles- inland.Large commandos were led against the Bush-men in the 1770s, as the conflict between thehunter-gatherers and the stock farmers reacheda climax. Many on both sides suffered greatly.Here, from Moodie's record is the anguishedplea of one Trekboer who lived in the region ofGraaff Reinet. It suffers somewhat in transla-tion, but it retains that quality of urgency andexasperation which I believe we must see inthe outlook of the Trekboer if we are to under-stand the harsher reactions which so oftencharacterised his behaviour on the frontier.Some struck out wildly at the elusive foes,others played tricks on them. Carel van derMerwe was at his wits end and on the point oftears as he wrote to ask for help on 19 Decem-ber 1777:Worthy Brother, David Schalk van derMerwe. Should this letter reach yousafe it will be pleasing to me. As regardsmyself I am not yet quite well, and nowthe glands are so swollen in my thighsthat I can scarce walk. But as to condi-tions in the country, it is very bad, be-cause the Bossiesmans have so muchtheir own way without opposition andthey have pushed in so far that theyhave passed me and are around me dayand night. On the 18th day of this monthin the evening they attacked Piet Venter'sherdsmen close to his house andwounded them very severely, and mur-dered a very great number of sheep.From Dirk Coetse also a lot and fromKoster a lot of cattle away. Klaas Smitvery severely wounded. Here are nofarms or very few that do not sufferunder their violence. O Heavenly King,look down upon us to our comfort and tothe terror of our haughty enemies formurder and riot are daily getting moreand more the upper hand and thus wemust live in great extremity. I thereforebeg you [h's brother] in God's name thatyou will give us so much help that willbeat the robbers out of the mountains,were it so many Hottentots as quick asyou can send them to me . . , We aremuch too weak to oppose the numbersthat have collected together in hundredsand thousands and advanced against us,so that we are not certain for our livesfor an hour.We often imagine the white farmer in hispursuit of the Bushmen as incl'ned to shoot onsight, considering them to be mere vermin tobe exterminated; but the story has more nuancethan that, as can be seen from the pages ofHeinrich Lichtenste'n who travelled throughthe Cape in the early nineteenth century duringthe time of the Batavian Republic. He knew thathunting expeditions into Bushman territorychased away their game, but he also noticedefforts being made by frontier Boers to reacha peaceful accommodation with the hunter-gatherers of the Karoo: a share of the bagafter a hunt perhaps, or gifts of stock in thehope that they would use them for breeding.More frequently some kind of danegeld in theform of 'sheep, tobacco, brandy, beads, buttonsand other trifles', as Lichtenstein put it, which Itwas hoped would keep the marauders away.But were the Bushmen really so unfriendly?Burchell who travelled through the Cape in-terior about a decade later than Lichtensteinwas surprised at the ease with which he couldget through to a small Bushman communityin the Northern Cape. He made contact, theyaccepted him, they danced for him, he gavethem presents in return and wrote enthusiastic-ally;so much confidence and good will shownus by a people whom the Klaarwatermissionaries had represented as the mostferocious of savages, warmed my heartwith equally kind feelings towards them,and dispelled from my own mind everysensation of fear, however firmly I hadresolved that no favourable appearancesshould ever lull our vigilance to sleep.But most of my Hottentots betrayed theirtimidity, and both by their looks andtheir conversation declared their un-easiness at seeing so many visitorsaround them, although the number in-cluding the women amounted to onlyfourteen.Conflict on the Bushman frontier continueddown into the late nineteenth century, as theBushmen receded steadily towards the OrangeRiver. A nasty incident took place in the 1860swhen some Bushmen prisoners were murderedby their escort, and a special magistrate L.Anthing was sent North by the Cape Govern-ment to conduct an inquiry. His report asJ. S, Marais observed is a terrible documentBut what seems to shine through it is the factthat even after a real breakdown of relationsbetv/een frontier fanner and pagan hunter andwhen something like open warfare had brokenout again, conditions still existed for therestoration of law, order and inter-racial con-fidence, by the intervention of a single magis-trate. I quote now from Anthing's report:I proceeded to the scene of these occur-rences, but before I reached it theBushmen had made another inroad onthe cattle of some other persons and hadswept off some forty head, twenty ofwhich were subsequently recovered; anda commando had gone to attack theBushmen, but were obliged to retireafter a little skirmishing in which oneof the commando party was slightlywounded by an arrow while two of theBushwomen received buliet wounds. Al-though it was generally believed thatthe Bushmen, of whose probable numberI got rather exaggerated accounts,would refuse to surrender and wouldoffer a desperate resistance, it turned outotherwise. I sent word to them that Iwas a magistrate come to administerjustice to all alike, which had the effectof bringing them to surrender withouta resort to force. So 1 marched all theprisoners, including women and childrento Kenhardt where I completed theexaminations and forwarded these tothe Acting Attorney-General. I now hada hundred prisoners who had to beguarded by night and day by armedmen, the gaol which we had commencedbuilding not having been completed.In spite of the guard eight of theprisoners, those who were in arrest forthe murder of the Lourenses and thetwo young men near the HartebeestRiver and who were kept chained andhandcuffed, effected their escape and wehad great trouble getting them back.I may mention that four of these escapedprisoners, murderers of the Lourenses,were after a fruitless search of aboutfourteen days by a patrol i had sent outeventually brought in by other Bush-men, their own kinsmen, who had atfirst supplied them with weapons asthey had been informed by the prisonersthey had been released, but who uponlearning that they had escaped fromcustody, sought them again in the desertand there where no while man waspresent to prompt them, but merely forthe sake of justice disarmed and arrestedthe fugitives and brought them back tome. I mention the circumstance asshowing the influence the report of ourproceedings and professions was spread-ing among the so-called intractableBushmen.Did it need a newcomer to shatter the stereo-type and break the spell of mutual hatred onthe frontier? That has often happened in SouthAfrica. In the experience of Burchell andAnthing it seems to have worked. Why didn'tit work in the case of a John Philip or aMahatma Gandhi, or a Harold Macmillan? Ileave the question with you.THE LANDThe frontier produced its own special kindof tensions. In settled areas which the fightinghad passed over, the relationship between BlacKand White began to readjust on different lines,some of which came to be regarded as ideolo-gically appropriate, and others not. 1 can putthis simply by saying that in the farming areas,if a black man settled on a white man's landand became his servant and earned his rightto occupy the land, either by working for himor by paying a cash rent, this was all right.Only comparatively recently has labour ten-ancy come to be frowned upon. But if a blackman clubbed together with his neighbours andbought a white man's farm or alternatively ranhis own stock on the white man's farm and be-came a share-cropper, this came to be regardedas improper.In the Land Act of 19 J 3 the Union Govern-ment tried to do something about this kind ofaberration. The objections of white farmers toshare-cropping were clearly expressed by aFree State Parliamentarian, Mr J. G. Keyter,in evidence to the Beaumont Land Commissionof 1916 set up to propose the extension of Afri-can Reserve land in terms of the 1913 Act:We have all along taken up the positionthat the natives in the Free State shouldbe the servants and they know it. I amcertain that we are doing the colouredpeople, that is all blacks, no injusticewhatever. There arc certain natives whohave come here and who absolutely re-fuse to be servants. They are fairly wellto do and they want a part of the farmto sow on shares [that is, to take part inshare-cropping]. They have their young-sters to look after their stock, and theythemselves are free to go about and dowhat they like. I see in the newspaperlately that they say that all the farmerneeds to do is to draw a line and say tohis boy; 'You sow this part for your-self and then you sow that part for me'and the papers say where is the differ-ence to the old sowing on the halves?Well, when the boy had his whole pieceof ground to sow and be given part ofthe crops, he was not a servant but apartner, a master. The half-share systemis a pernicious system because you takeaway from your neighbours, natives whoought to be servants.But for Sam Tshabalala who lived in thenorth-eastern Free State like Keyter, thingsappeared rather differently:I am a Zulu, I live in the district ofBethlehem. I am many years in the FreeState and I have worked on the farms. Itis very hard now to stay on the farms;it is difficult to stay on because after thenative has ploughed and sown his masteralways sends the native off the farm.He says the agreement has been broken;many natives come to the magistrateand complain of being turned off, andthe magistrate cannot help us. The policesay 'Go to a lawyer'. The farmer whoturned me off was able to get boys afterI left. All the trouble lies in this, thatwe have no land to go to with our stock.Exaggeration? Possibly, here and there, andsome suggestion of a stereotype response, butthere is no doubt whatever that anyone whohas read Sol Plaatje's book Native Life in SouthAfrica will know that deprivation of land on avast scale following conquest and then legisla-tive action after conquest, created immense re-sentment among the deprived.Loss of land destroyed economic independ-ence. In Southern Rhodesia things were lessserious as the Tribal Land continued to feedits inhabitants, but in South Africa the Re-serves ceased to be able to feed their popula-tions in the 1930s. They became net importersof food. This did more than cause soil erosionand malnutrition. It destroyed the argument infavour of peasant holdings, for this kind offarming no longer made economic sense. Butmany years were wasted before Governmentdared to admit that such was the case. Mean-while resentment continued to grow. It hasmanifested itself in statements by the politicalleaders of KwaZulu and the Transkei for anextension of the area of African sovereigntyand apparently African landownership as well.The South African Prime Minister replied in-sisting on the frontiers laid down in the 1936Act. But the 1936 Act referred to ownership,not sovereignty. Demands for an extension ofthe area of African sovereignty are as I seeit compelling, but to encourage peasant cultiva-tion in areas where there has been capitalisedfarming would be to reduce the capacity ofthe soil to sustain life. Yet because of the re-sentments built up because of land ownership,there is a danger that this will have to happen.No wonder then that a major part of our storymust seem to be tensions over the holding ofland.THE TOWNSLet us now look at the towns. I suppose thatof all the contrasts between the outlook ofBlacks and Whites in the urban areas wherecrowds of people live close together and wherework is provided for them by mine, factoryand shop, the greatest antithesis of all has beenthat between desire for freedom on the oneside and for control on the other. The Africanwho protested against the pass laws and tookpart in one or other of the many pass-burningcampaigns in the history of the Union reflectedthis desire for freedom. So did the member ofthe Native Representative Council who com-mented that 'our locations are nothing but zoos.If you want to get into a native location youhave to go through a gate.' I take as a repre-sentative statement part of an address by aremarkable South African, Richard Godlo, nowa forgotten man living in Uitenhage, who inhis day was not only a member of the NativeConference set up by General Smuts in 1920and of the Native Representative Council setup in 1936, but also the founder and for manyyears President of the less well known Loca-tion Advisory Boards Congress. This Congress,which had met annually since 1929 and hadbecome increasingly representative of urbanAfrican opinion as the years went by, usuallyattracted a good attendance by delegates fromall provinces, that is African delegates mainly,as well as by Municipal Councillors and SeniorMembers of the Department of Native Affairsin Pretoria. Godlo has been the first President,and held this office for many years. He wasrecalled in 1956 to preside over the closingsessions of this Congress, for the Governmenthad decided to withdraw support from it onaccount of its alleged involvement in politics.How it could avoid getting involved in politicswas not clear to Godlo and he said so; buthe ended with a broad plea for the kinds offreedom which the white people could generallytake for granted, but which of course blacktownsmen could not:Therefore much as we may be loth todo so, the conditions under which ourpeople live in the urban areas make itessential that we should re-state ourhumble and modest demands for the re-cognition of the permanent character ofthe urban African population, and im-plicit in that recognition are the follow-ing minimum rights that are denied tous by current legislation:1. The right to participate in the localself-government granted to urbanlocal authorities [m other words theAdvisory Boards will not do].2. The right to possess and own a homein the urban areas [a plea for somekind of secure tenure].3. The right to come and go [an impliedattack on the pass laws].4. The right to sell one's labour to thehighest bidder [freedom of contract,an implied attack on the IndustrialConciliation legislation].5. The right to the inviolability of one'shome against [liquor raids, pass raids].6. The right to self-expression [freedomof speech and assembly].And if at times circumstances over whichwe have no control make us fall foulof the present laws, may I be permittedto make a further appeal to those inauthority in the famous lines of CharlesDickens. 'But gentlemen, gentlemen,dealing with other men like me begin atthe right end. Give us kinder laws tobring us back when we are going wrong,don't set gaol, gaol, gaol afore us every-where we turn'.Godlo loved this quotation, and he used iton two occasions. An attemnt was nmde in1942 when Colin Steyn was Minister of Justiceand Denys Reitz was Minister of Native Affairsto get rid of gaol sentences for statutoryoffences, such as not having one's pass on one'sperson. At that time it was found that 300.000had been imprisoned for this kind of offenceon the Rand over the previous three years. Theorder went out not to search for passes unlessa crime was suspected. It was then discovered10however, that relaxation of pass control resultedin non-registration by work-seekers at theUrban Labour Bureaux; the Jaws thereforewere enforced again. After Sharpeville the in-junction went out again to desist, but currentarrests for pass offences now exceeed half amillion every year although the terminologyhas changed. Freedom was what the Africanwanted, along the lines that Godlo suggested.Control was what the white man wanted forthe kind of reasons, for example, that SirTheophilus Shepstone put forward when re-commending a plan for the regulation, of casuallabour in Durban in May 1873:A large number of labourers flocked tothe two towns, that is Durban andMaritzburg, to supply themselves withwhatever they want, and heretofore,monthly services in establishments orfamilies has been the means used toobtain their object. Lately the idea ofday, 'togt' or job work seems to have be-come important, and the consequenceis that a large proportion of these menrefuse to accept any employment thatwill bind them longer than a day. As arule they demand, and employers arecompelled by their necessity to give,wages far in excess of the highest ratepaid to monthly servants. These menhave no homes, and as soon as the;rhours of work are over they are free towander about by night and to resume ornot their work by day as they please.This system, says Shepstone, is calculated toproduce and does produce insecurity in thetowns, it destroys or fails to create any feelingof mutual interest between master and servantand threatens if not checked to produce alarge and fluctuating native population livingin the towns but having no home in them. Ofcourse, Shepstone had a very strong point; thesituation did produce a good deal of socialchaos. So the regulations were drawn up, thebadge the 'togt' worker had to wear, the month-ly fee, the register of 'togt' labourers, the obliga-tion of the labourer to accept whatever workwas offered at a fixed wage, and in due coursethe obligation to Jive in a compound when theday's work was done.Compounds were in fact the white man'sanswer to a variety of control problems; thecontrol of the first Indian labourers to arrivein Durban, the control of illicit diamond dealsin Kimberley where de Beer's established theirfirst compound for Blacks only in 1885. Onthe Rand Mines compounds were introducedas a technique for more general police control.This was well reflected in the evidence givento the Native Grievances Enquiry Commissionin 1913-1914, a Commission which had beenset up to probe African mineworkers' participa-tion in the Kleinfontein Strike of 1913. Strikingby Africans was already a breach of contractand an indictable offence; but, said the Com-missioner, 'during the riots of July, we werewithin an ace of a native outbreak on a seriousscale'. He put this down to the growing numberof detribalised and educated Africans on themines and went on: T see no necessity to takean alarmist view. With ordinary care and goodgovernment no question of hostilities betweennative and Europeans should ever arise, butthat is not a sufficient reason for neglecting toprovide against them.' He then went on tolist the advice he had been given by witnesses:The suggestions that have been made tome as a precaution against a general out-break among native mine labourers maybe grouped as follows:1. A dormant military organisationamong the whites on every mine.2. A permanent European guard oneach mine.3. The closed compound system.4. That compounds should be so de-signed that while open, they should beclosable upon an emergency.5. An intelligence department or secretservice in the compounds to keep intouch with native feeling.6. A mobile force of police availableto strike in any direction.7. The limitation of the number ofnatives in the compounds to a definiteproportion of the number of Europeans.8. Closer supervision of the compoundsat night.9. Searches for arms at regular inter-vals.10. The more complete separation oftribes in the compounds at night aswhile at work.POLITICAL POWERNor was control simply something that hadto do with the handling of crowds or the pre-servation of law and order. It was linked tothe problem of political power. As Colonel11Stallard asked quite legitimately, in the reportof the Transvaal Local Government Commis-sion in 1922: 'If Africans were allowed to buildup a vested interest in the urban areas, howcould they possibly be deprived in the long runof the municipal franchise.' For one who sawthe towns, rightly or wrongly, as the creationof the white man, this was an intolerable posi-tion. But his reaction was merely one illustra-tion of a fear which has run right through thehistory of the white man's outiook in the pastcentury. The vote was power. To give thiskind of power to the black man in the decision-making bodies of the State involved too great arisk. Even in the relatively liberal Cape wherethe franchise laws did not differentiate betweenskin colours, the precincts of Parliament re-mained inviolate, and the voting qualificationswere raised when it began to look as if an on-slaught on them might take place. Except forthe period of special native representation be-tween 1938 and 1959 when the native repre-sentatives in Parliament created more fuss Lnanwas perhaps anticipated, South Africa has neverexperienced the hurly-burly of a direct inter-racial slogging match in the highest councilsof the land, and from 1938 to 1959 this was onlyexperienced by proxy. This South Africanvisitor to Rhodesia cannot refrain from noticingthat Rhodesia has been wise enough to pre-serve in its legislature those opportunities forinter-racial confrontation which provide a baro-meter of real feelings, in order to avoid a worldof make-believe. But although South Africahas never had this priceless experience, mycomments at least show that it has been missedby some.My first illustration concerns an attemptby a coloured man to join a branch of theAfrikaner Bond, the only occasion of which Iam aware that this was tried. The incident tookplace in the early 1880s in the Eastern Cape,and it is important to note as background thatthe Afrikaner Bond in the Cape had deliber-ately refrained from writing a colour bar intoits constitution, so as not to alienate colouredvoters at the polls. Here is the report of whathappened:After the meeting had been opened by aspeech from the Chairman, Mr M. J.Olivier, and the minutes of the previousmeeting had been read and approved,the Chairman asked if there were anypresent who wished to become membersof the Bond, in which case they couldgive in their names. At this, Michaelvan Niekerk, a farmer living at Driefon-tein, asked if anybody could become amember of the Bond. When he was givenan affirmative answer he immediatelyshouted out, 'Ian Krap, come in'. Anda Hottentot listening for the name JanKrap immediately entered through thedoors as if at a prearranged sign, andstepped into the meeting. 'Come close,sign your name' said van Niekerk. ButJan Krap's protector was given to under-stand cleanv that according lo the Bondconstitution one had lo have the ap-proval of the Ward Committee beforeone could become a member of theBond and furthermore in the presenceof Michael van Niekerk, the minuteswere read out in which it was expresslydeclared that nobody who was not amember of the Bond had any right tospeak at the meeting without the per-mission of the Chairman. His introduc-tion of the black man consequentlyrested on false grounds, through wantingto do something which he was notqualified to do. The Chairman now spokeand made it clear to Jan Krap that theyfelt under no obligation to admit him asa member of the Bond because they hadnot yet come to the conviction that therowas no dividing line between white andblack, whereupon Jan Krap made him-self scarce. The Chairman then turned tovan Niekerk and in the name of theBond and in the name of Mr Piet Rade-meyer, the host, expressed his displeasureat such behaviour. After he had receivedthe reprimand Jan Wasserman then gavehim to understand that he could leavethe meeting, which van Niekerk im-mediately did. His plot had utterly failedand it would probably be better for himto set up a Bond among his own folkon his own farm, with Jan Krap asChairman while he could then act asSecretary.This last sentence reads a little bit like secret-arial impromptu, but this was what was re-quired for De Tolk. The Bond newspaper gavethese minutes editorial coverage in order togive other branches a lead as to what theyshould do if faced with a similar predicament.12ŁI #Unless it should be thought that I am hostileto the Branch of the Bond because it was anAfrikaner body, let me hasten to say thatexcept when it suited them for pragmaticreasons to do otherwise the English-speakingparties were every bit as reluctant to admitmembers who were not white. In more recentyears in the Prevention of Improper Inter-ference Act things have perhaps changed, butthen the Progressive Party which is the onemainly affected has substantial Afrikaans aswell as English-speaking members.My second illustration on the issue of poli-tical power comes from the debates of theNative Representative Council, the body set upby General Hertzog's Act of 1936, as a partialsubstitute for the loss of the Common RollFranchise by the Cape Africans. These debatesare thought-provoking, on account not onlyof the quality of so many of the speeches, butalso of the high level of courtesy between Afri-can Councillors and white officials, even onoccasions when the frustrations came close tobreaking-point. During April 1946 they didcome to breaking-point. At a special sessionof the Native Representative Council in CapeTown it was learnt that an African mine-workers strike had been put down with a fairamount of police violence. Relations betweenthe Council and the Government during themiddle-war years had in fact been improving.Councillors recognised that a real effort hadbeen made to get to the root of their grievancesparticularly when Dcnys Reitz had beenMinister and Douglas Smit had been Secretaryfor Native Affairs; but after the mineworkersstrike Dr J. S. Moroka, in disappointment andexasperation at current government indifferenceto African wishes, moved that the Councilshould adjourn and he called on the govern-ment to abolish forthwith all discriminatorylegislation affecting non-Europeans in thecountry.This was in fact the climax of a movementwhich had been building up very smartly overthe previous two years. His speech was loadedwith feeling, and so were those of other speakerswho followed him. One of them was PaulMosaka who rose shortly afterwards and gavehis much quoted and very striking picture ofthe breakdown of communications:From the very beginning when the Gov-ernment proposed to adopt the policyof segregation as the cornerstone ofnative legislation, we were far-sightedand intelligent enough to say that wasthe way of disaster. The experiment hasfailed, because the Government which isthe author of segregation and thereforethe author of this Native RepresentativeCouncil never intended to honour itspledge. It has never bothered itself forone single second about the Council. Itis right to say that the Governmentwhich established this Council in orderthat it should be advised by the Councildoes not know the Council and seeming-ly does not care to know what theCouncil says or does. We have beenasked to co-operate with a toy telephone.¥/e have been speaking into an ap-paratus which cannot transmit soundand at the end of which there is nobodyto receive the message. Like childrenwe have taken pleasure at the echo ofour own voices.But they still tried to keep the door open.The Gandhian recipe of civil disobedience in1952, though it resulted in violence, was agesture of non-provocation. Only in the early1960s was there a clear move in the direction ofviolence, and I am not sure then that it wasintended to be violence against people. Similarlythe latest Black Power campaign is not somuch a movement of greater extremism,certainly not in its present stage, as an attemptto test the hona fides of government yet again.What Black Power could become is anotherquestion. For in the long term it is not a con-ciliatory move any more than Malan National-ism was a conciliatory move; but Black Powerwas surely what the government asked for. Forit must be recognised that with the abolitionof Hertzog's Native Representative Council in1951, of the Location Advisory Boards Con-gress in 1957, of integration at universities in1959, of the Native Representatives and of theAfrican political parties in 1960, that the mainbridges of contact went down. All in. effectthat remained, apart from a small amount ofa liaison from advisory boards and town coun-cils and a few private organisations and a smallnumber of churches, was the hot line that ranvia Pretoria, when as is about to happen thelink between town councils and their own loca-tions is virtually snapped. And if such bodiesas the Institute of Race Relations and theNational Union of South African Students were13to have their contacts across the colour linebroken, then the association between Black andWhite in South Africa would have movedalmost exclusively into the functional arena. Ibelieve that is very dangerous. When peopleare treated merely as instruments of produc-tion, as Aristotle looked on slaves, or as beingswho have almost no rights even in places wherethey live and work, then we are one stagenearer to not caring what happens to them,whatever happens to them. Our resettlementcamps which are increasing in numbers are analarming sympton that this kind of danger isupon us. It is implicit in the outlook of thosein authority that the slighter the contact be-tween the races, the less scope there will be forracial tension. In other words that the bestrace relations are no race relations. But thatI find impossible to believe.14