The Statutory Background of Apartheid: A Chronological Survey of South African Legislation

Literature › Works

Margaret Cornell (1960). The Statutory Background of Apartheid: A Chronological Survey of South African Legislation. The World Today, Vol. 16, No. 5. Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Type	journal article
Scope	Wider apartheid literature
Method	primary document
Period studied	1895–1960
Regions	South Africa, Union of South Africa, Transkei, Natal, Transvaal, Orange Free State, Cape Province
Themes	origins segregation, bantustans removals influx, labour markets wages, politics ideology elections, unions strikes, education human capital, agriculture land
Citation key	cornell1960

Argument

Cornell provides a chronological, thematically organised catalogue of South African statutes, proclamations and notices that created the legal framework of segregation and apartheid up to April 1960. She argues that the Union pursued a more or less definite segregationist policy from 1909, which the Nationalist government after 1948 turned into deliberate 'apartheid'. The survey covers racial classification, political rights, movement and settlement (pass laws and influx control), property, labour, education, criminal law, social rights, public services, social security, taxation and immigration. The article is largely descriptive, with brief editorial comments, for example that the Tomlinson plan would still leave more Africans than Whites in the European areas, and that pass-law arrests caused more racial antagonism than the more fundamental apartheid measures.

Evidence and method

Statutes, proclamations and government notices; the 1956 Tomlinson Commission report (U.G. 61/1955); the Native Laws Commission of 1946-8; parliamentary debates and ministerial statements (Journal of the Parliaments of the Empire; Optima); census figures from 1936 and 1946.

Place in the debates

• Continuity vs rupture between pre-1948 segregation and apartheid (see Origins, coherence and ideology of apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism). Stresses both: a 'more or less definite policy of racial segregation' from 1909, developed after 1948 into deliberate apartheid. Many measures (pass laws, land acts, colour bars) are traced to pre-1948 statutes.

Findings

• Cornell sees apartheid as a deliberate development of pre-existing segregation policy. (p. 2)

  since the Nationalist Party came into power in 1948 this policy has been de- veloped into a deliberate implementation of 'apartheid', of 'separate racial development'.

• The reserves covered a very small share of the Union's land. (p. 2)

  were estimated at the end of 1 958 to be equivalent to only about 11-9 per cent of the total area of the Union.

• The Tomlinson Commission proposed a ten-year development spending programme, but the government's first institutional step was small. The Bantu Investment Corporation's capital was £500,000. (p. 3)

  For the first ten-year period an expenditure of approximately £104 million was suggested

• The Tomlinson plan would not have solved the racial problem even if fully implemented. (p. 3)

  even if all the Commission's recommendations were to be implemented the plan would still leave slightly more Africans than Whites in the European areas

• The 1956 decision on reserve industry encouraged white industrialists to locate on the reserve borders, which is the origin of border industry policy. (p. 3)

  only African entrepreneurs would be allowed to set up manufacturing concerns within the reserves, but that white in- dustrialists would be actively encouraged to establish themselves on the borders of these areas.

• The 1952 Native Laws Amendment Act made labour bureaux a tool of influx control and of channelling Africans into farm labour. (p. 8)

  the labour bureaux in both town and rural areas have wide powers to refuse permission to enter urban areas and, by removing alternative opportunities, to draft Natives into farm labour.

• The 1954 amendment to the Native Trust and Land Act aimed to push farm squatters out of unregistered occupation and make their labour available to white farmers. (p. 9)

  aimed to evict Natives from farms outside the reserves, where they were unregistered squatters, and make their labour available to European farmers.

• Influx control was extended to the reserves themselves in 1957. (p. 10)

  (Influx control was thus extended to African rural areas as well as towns and European farms.)

• African workers were excluded from the statutory industrial relations machinery and strikes by Africans were prohibited. (p. 10)

  redefined the term 'employee' to exclude all Africans, for whom strikes were pro- hibited. African trade unions were denied official recognition

• The 1957 Wage Act did not cover the main fields of African employment. (p. 11)

  applied to all trades and professions except farm workers, domestic servants, and State employees, three of the main fields of African employment.

• Pass-law arrests were prevalent and were a major source of African grievance. (p. 7)

  one person out of ten went to prison for some period every year, in most cases for Pass Law offences.

• The 1953 Bantu Education Act centralised African schooling under state control to match the state's policy. (p. 11)

  Native education should be controlled in such a way that it should be in accord with the policy of the State.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source	Kind	Period	How used
Tomlinson Commission Report (Commission for the Socio-Economic Development of the Bantu Areas), 1956, summary U.G. 61/1955	commission or official report	1951-1956 (estimates to end of 1958)	Establishes the blueprint for separate development, its proposed expenditure, carrying capacity and the share of Union land held by Bantu areas.
Houghton, The Tomlinson Report: A Summary of the Findings and Recommendations (SAIRR, 1956)	secondary literature compilation	1956	Cited as an accessible summary of the Tomlinson Commission findings, whose main report was available only in roneoed form.
Statutes of the Union of South Africa, 1911-1960 (Acts, Proclamations and Government Notices)	legislation gazette	1892-1960	Forms the backbone of the chronological survey: each Act, Proclamation and Notice is summarised under thematic headings.
South Africa Act of 1909 and the 'entrenched clause'; Supreme Court/Appellate Division judgments on the Separate Representation of Voters Act	legislation gazette	1909-1956	Traces the constitutional conflict over Cape Coloured voting rights, court rulings and the Government's responses.
Parliamentary debate on the Natives (Abolition of Passes) Act, 1952 (statement by a Native Representative)	parliamentary debates	1952	Source of the claim that one in ten Africans was imprisoned annually, mostly for pass offences.
Journal of the Parliaments of the Empire, 1953, pp. 3575 ff. (Minister's speech moving the Bantu Education Bill)	parliamentary debates	1953	Quotes the Minister's stated rationale for Bantu education to show its ideological purpose.
Optima (quarterly, Anglo American Corporation) - article by the Secretary for Bantu Administration and Development, March 1959	newspapers periodicals	March 1959	Quotes an official's statement on white political supremacy to characterise the aims of the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act.
1936 and 1946 census/survey data on Coloured language and religion	population census	1936, 1946	Used to show Coloured assimilation to European culture (Afrikaans home language, Christianity).
Government figures on Bantu areas' share of Union land (end 1958) and on Bantu authorities established by 30 September 1959	official statistical series	1958-1959	Quantifies the area of reserves and the progress in setting up Bantu authorities.

Inference

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Descriptive chronological legislative survey. Statutes are catalogued under thematic headings (race classification, political rights, movement, property, labour, education, etc.). Claims about their effects rest on reading the legal texts, supplemented by a few quotations and scattered statistics. There is no systematic data analysis.

Key claims

Claim	Basis	Strength
Tomlinson-style separate development would leave the racial problem unresolved, as even full implementation would leave more Africans than Whites in the 'European' areas; the Bantu Investment Corporation was only a small first step. (p. 182)	Tomlinson Commission summary (U.G. 61/1955) and the Bantu Investment Corporation Act 1959, with the author's inference from the Commission's projections.	Partial data
The Nationalist Government subverted the constitutional entrenchment of Cape non-white voting rights by enlarging the Senate and packing the Appellate quorum, thereby enabling the Separate Representation of Voters Act. (p. 184)	Statutes (Separate Representation of Voters Act 1951, Appellate Division Quorum Act and Senate Act 1955, South Africa Act Amendment Act 1956) and court rulings.	Systematic data
Pass and influx-control legislation progressively restricted African movement, residence and employment in urban areas and channelled Africans into farm labour. (p. 187)	Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act 1945 and its amendments, the Native Laws Amendment Act 1952, the 1952 Abolition of Passes Act and the 1957 Native Laws Further Amendment Act.	Systematic data
Pass-law enforcement imprisoned a very large share of Africans, with mass arrests generating more racial antagonism than the 'fundamental' apartheid measures. (p. 192)	A single parliamentary statement by a Native Representative in 1952, plus the author's unsupported assertion about grievances.	Asserted
Labour legislation entrenched a colour bar by excluding Africans from skilled work, from industrial conciliation and from union recognition, and by extending influx control into reserves. (p. 189)	Mines and Works Act 1911, Industrial Conciliation Acts 1937 and 1956, Native Building Workers Act 1951, Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act 1953, Wage Act 1957.	Systematic data
The Bantu Education Act centralised African schooling under the Department of Native Affairs for ideological ends. (p. 190)	Bantu Education Act 1953 and its amendments, plus the Minister's quoted speech in the Journal of the Parliaments of the Empire.	Systematic data
Land legislation (1913, 1936, 1954, 1957 and the Group Areas Acts) confined Africans to about 12% of the Union and facilitated removals and the supply of labour to European farmers. (p. 188)	Native Land Act 1913, Native Trust and Land Acts 1936 and 1954, Group Areas Acts, Native Resettlement Act, and the Tomlinson area estimate.	Partial data
Social security and wage provisions discriminated by race, with lower benefits for Africans and exclusion of major African employment sectors. (p. 192)	Workmen's Compensation Act 1941, Old Age Pensions 1944, Unemployment Insurance Act 1946, Wage Act 1957, read as legislation.	Systematic data

The author's caveats

The survey is explicitly a summary of legislation. It notes that only a few roneoed copies of the 17-volume Tomlinson report exist and relies on the summary. It gives no caveats about the statistics cited.

Gaps in the evidence

The survey lists what the laws provided but offers little evidence of how they were enforced or what their economic effects were. Prosecution statistics, influx-control arrest and removal figures, wage and school-enrolment data, and the Union Statistics/census series were available at the time and would test the claims. The Tomlinson Commission's full volumes and parliamentary Hansard are now accessible and could support analysis of enforcement and impact. Census sources and some figures (such as the 1936 and 1946 data) are not precisely cited.

Replicability: Data poorly documented.