Source Material on the South African Economy : 1860-1970. By D. Hobart Houghton and /. Dagut.Cape Town, Oxford Univ. Press, 1972-3, 3 vols: xxii, 370 pp. £6,20; xii, 247 pp. £5,00; xii, 263 pp.£5,00.South Africa. An Historical Introduction. By F. Troup. London, Eyre Methuen, 1972, xviii, 428pp. £4,50.It is welcome to see a growing interest inthe South African economy. The three volumesby Houghton and Dagut comprise a collectionof some 550 extracts drawn from nearly 200different sources, arranged by topic in eachof the volumes which are chronological (1860-99; 1899-1919; 1920-70). The extracts are wellchosen and do illustrate both the remarkableeconomic growth of South Africa and the in-tractable problems of that divided country;and there can be little doubt that those unable,or too lazy, to go to original sources will findthese volumes extremely useful. Neverthelesscertain reservations must be made about thissort of source-book which is increasingly beingtaken up by publishers.The first problem is that a collection of snip-pets gives a view of the South African economythat is inevitably episodic and incomplete. Thereader is given, for example, details of the1918 census but little, except passing references,to later growth of population. To make sucha collection of extracts really meaningful anduseful, there needs to be added tables of basicstatistics which would provide the full context.The second problem is that extracts eachtend to concentrate on one facet of the economywith the result that an integrated view of thateconomy escapes the reader. Thus, despite use-ful extracts from the Report oi the Low GradeMines Commission of 1920, and the Third Inter-im Report of the Industrial and AgriculturalRequirements Commission of 1941, neither thegold-mining industry's peculiar need to mini-mise costs nor its importance in capital forma-tion for the rest of the economy is brought out.Teaching Rhodesians. A History of EducationalLongman, 1972, ix, 244 pp. Rh$7,00.This account of the processes of educationin Rhodesia is based on a very extensive biblio-graphy, but in size remains quite a modestvolume. Having selected such a broad canvasfor the portrayal of significant stages, it is notsurprising that Atkinson covers some areasquite thinly.For instance, although the educational ideasSimilarly, equally useful illustrations of themigratory labour system are provided by ex-tracts from the Report of the Economic andWage Commission of 1925-6 and the Reportof the Native Laws Commission of Enquiry of1948, but its crucial role in the gold-mining in-dustry and effect on the rest of the economy arcnot brought out. Although the editors obviouslycannot include everything, it is strange thatthere is no extract from the revealing MinesNative Wages Commission of 1947, nor indeedfrom the Native Land Act of 1913.What is clearly lacking, then, in such acollection is interpretation of the economythat is being atomised by extracts. To someextent Troup's history of South Africa suppliesthis want. For while making no pretension tobeing more than an introduction based onsecondary sources, this example of liberal his-toriography does pay more attention than usualto the economy; and unlike the collection ofextracts, sees the need to talk in terms of poli-tical economy.It is nevertheless significant that neitherTroup, nor the extracts or comments ofHoughton and Dagut, use the term 'class' indissecting the South African economy; and,congruently, the fact that this term is con-sistently not employed by the contributors tothe symposium on Race Relations in SouthernAfrica, printed in this edition, is indicative ofthe nature of both academic debate and officialconcern in Southern Africa rather than of thetrue nature of the political economy thatostensibly is being debated.R.S.R.Policy in Rhodesia. By N. D. Atkinson. London,of H. S. Keigwin are adequately outlined, andH. Jowitt's important contribution to Africanschools is recognized, there is no reference toE. D. Alvord, whose collaboration with Jowittin African development probably provided theessential ingredient in effecting social change.Likewise, the attempt to cover the ten years ofthe Federal experiment in sixteen pages could107not do justice to the enormous adjustments inattitudes in both African and European com-munities which marked this period, nor to thevast educational expansion which occurred. Attimes the work reads more like a chronicle ofevents and views rather than an interpretativehistory.Nevertheless this book has the merit ofbringing together for the first time, quite a fullrecord of the main considerations which haveaffected the growth of the education providedfor all Rhodesians, with particular emphasis onthe development of the African people, in amost thorough assembling of well-documentedfacts. The book has also some of the defectsof a pioneering text, some factual, some inter-pretative, and possibly some of omission.In his introduction to this work ProfessorBasil Fletcher makes a salient point:Two very different imperial traditionsmet at the Zambesi. It has remainedfor a century an ideological barrieracross tropical Africa like the Iron Wallin Europe.This point may have arisen because of anoverready acceptance in this book of commentsby visiting educationists, contained in commis-sion reports and other writings, which haveignored or undervalued this difference. TheUniversity of Rhodesiafact that Southern Rhodesia, after the grantingof responsible government in 1923, was in 1925placed under the British Dominions Office,while Northern Rhodesia continued under theColonial Office, was no administrative con-venience, but rather a decision which recognizedand accepted the operation of two imperialtraditions.This book, therefore, might quite properlyhave challenged the validity of views expressedin early official reports concerning SouthernRhodesia, especially in the light of subsequentevents. It might also have questioned the prac-tice, common in reports which admit littlerestraint in the scope of their purview, of lump-ing together, either for criticism or advice,widely separated countries and diverse com-munities in an Africa that has never been aunit in any sense, save as a land mass.As an area of research the history of formalinstruction in Rhodesia has so far been occu-pied by writers who have provided pamphletsand short works covering some aspect of theprocess. This book deserves the fullest use asa text which spans the period, providing aframework into which other works can befitted, or possibly a kind of architect's elevationwhich permits of a degree of perspective inassessing component works.J. McHARGCatalogue of the C. M. Boke Collection on African Languages In the Library of the Universityof Rhodesia. Boston (Mass.), G. K. Hall, 1972, xxxii, 546 pp. US$29,50.This work catalogues more than 3,000books, pamphlets and manuscripts belongingto C. M. Doke which the University of Rho-desia acquired ten years ago. The collectionincludes some rare books such as Appleyard'sThe Kafir Language of 1850, and invaluablemanuscript dictionaries and grammars on sub-jects such as Rhodesian Tonga. Altogetherthere are works in more than 120 Bantu langu-ages, and there are also valuable works onfolklore.The collection is not systematic, but re-presents the interests and opportunities of alife-time of study, travel, gift, purchase andreviewing, and there is less than one mightexpect on some aspects of Southern Africanfolklore. Nevertheless the research potential ofsuch a collection of early texts on Africanlanguages is great, as has been demonstratedby a recent article on Mwari by G. Fortune(Rhodesian History, 1973, 4). The Cataloguein fact has a useful introduction on Doke andthe Collection by Professor Fortune.Unfortunately there is some confusion asto the exact contents of the Catalogue. ProfessorFortune notes that the Doke Collection thatwas acquired did not contain works by Dokehimself and thus it comes about that neitherthis Collection nor the Catalogue (nor, incident-ally, the University Library itself) contains suchimportant works of his as The Phonetics ofthe Zulu Language of 1926 which, however, hasrecently been made available in a reprint. Itis partly to offset this absence of Doke's worksthat this Catalogue has added to it a useful108