Source Material on the South African Economy: 1860-1970, Volume 1: 1860-1899¶
D. Hobart Houghton; Jenifer Dagut (1972). Source Material on the South African Economy: 1860-1970, Volume 1: 1860-1899. Source Material on the South African Economy (3 vols.). Oxford University Press, Cape Town.
| Type | primary source |
| Scope | Economics and economic history of apartheid |
| Method | primary document |
| Period studied | 1860–1899 |
| Regions | Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free State, Transvaal (South African Republic), Griqualand West, Witwatersrand |
| Themes | origins segregation, mining migrant labour, agriculture land, labour markets wages, business and state, macro fiscal finance debt, demography urbanisation, methods data sources, manufacturing industrial policy |
| Citation key | houghton1972 |
Argument¶
This is an edited collection of extracts from official reports, Blue Books, parliamentary papers, travellers' accounts and almanacs, with short editorial prefaces, covering the South African economy from the 1860s to 1899. The editors argue that the 1860s were not a uniform 'decade of depression' but a diverse, pre-mineral market economy of wool, agriculture, towns and banks. They then argue that diamond and gold discoveries sped up economic change, drew the separate territories into one economy, and fixed patterns of dependence on two exports, cheap migrant labour (via the compound system) and colour-based differentiation of labour. The extracts are chosen to represent all shades of opinion, so the argument sits mainly in the editorial introductions.
Evidence and method¶
Cape, Natal, Transvaal and OFS Blue Books, civil commissioners' reports, select committee evidence (cotton, railways, roads, Native Affairs Commission 1865), petitions, census returns and statistical registers, almanacs, and contemporary handbooks and travelogues (Noble, Payton, Matthews, Mathers, Silver & Co., Collins), plus tables of wages, prices, trade, revenue, population and mine output.
Place in the debates¶
- Were the 1860s a 'decade of depression' before the mineral discoveries? (see Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War). The editors reject this: most contemporary documents show diversity, experiment and hope. They also note recessions and that contemporaries did not view the diamond finds as an unmixed blessing.
- Origins of migrant labour and the compound system (see Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War). The editors say the compound system was meant to end diamond theft and illicit buying, but in effect 'entrenched, if it did not originate' the migratory-labour pattern.
- Did the mining revolution unify the South African economy? (see Pre-Union colonial economy, the mineral revolution and the South African War). The editors say it pulled the country together into a single economy through trade, transport and labour movement, but not wholly before the Anglo-Boer War.
Findings¶
-
Editors reject the 'decade of depression' view of the 1860s and see diversity and hope. (p. 14)
Most contemporary documents, far from showing 'a decade of depression' or 'the gloomy years before the mineral discoveries', reflect many of the elements to be found in the post-industrial period
-
The compound system entrenched migratory labour. (p. 224)
In effect, the compound system entrenched, if it did not originate, the migratory-labour pattern of South Africa.
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Migrant labour at low wages made Rand gold mining profitable. (p. 225)
Above all, it was the willingness of African tribesmen to become migrant labourers at low wages which enabled the ores to be mined at a profit.
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Gold and diamonds dominated exports in 1891-5. (p. 225)
In the period 1891-5 two-thirds of the total value of exports from South Africa was made up of gold and diamonds.
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Mine labour in the Transvaal in 1898 was overwhelmingly African, at falling average pay. (p. 317)
I 1,092 whites and 89,006 natives, as against 10,002 whites and 75,788 natives in 1897.
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On Kimberley's mines, African labourers vastly outnumbered white supervisors. (p. 310)
For every three truck-loads of ground daily hauled out of the mine there is on an average one Kaffir labourer employed, and to every five Kaffirs there is one
Evidence ledger¶
Sources used¶
| Source | Kind | Period | How used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cape of Good Hope Blue Books 1860-1875 (annual), including Civil Commissioners' Reports (Appendix JJ) and statistical tables (manufactures, wages, prices, banks, revenue, trade, shipping) | official statistical series | 1860-1870, 1875, 1885 | Supplies district-by-district descriptions of agriculture, labour, roads, trade and diamond effects, plus tabulated returns on wages, prices, banks, revenue and trade. |
| Cape Census 1865 (Census Act 1864) and Census Report G 20-'66 | population census | 1865 | Gives population by race, sex and occupation for each division in the first general Cape census. |
| Colony of Natal Blue Books 1863-1871 and 1890-91 (statistics of population, stock, crops, manufactories, wages, trade, banks, revenue) | official statistical series | 1863-1871, 1890-91 | Provides Natal population, occupations, stock, crops, manufacturing establishments, wages, trade and revenue. |
| The Natal Almanac and Yearly Register 1863-1869 (incl. reports of Resident Magistrates) | commission or official report | 1862-1868 | Source for Natal wages, prices, immigration, exports and local economic conditions in the 1860s. |
| Cape of Good Hope House of Assembly Votes and Proceedings Annexures 1861-1870 (petitions, governors' speeches, select committee reports, revenue estimates) | parliamentary debates | 1861-1870 | Documents contemporary debate and petitions on railways, wine duties, usury, taxation, income tax and Free State customs claims. |
| Cape Select Committee Reports: Railway Reports 1864 (A.4-'64), Contributions to Main Roads 1867 (A.5-'67), Cotton Cultivation 1870 (A.2-'70), Bees and Honey 1868 (A.17-'68) | commission or official report | 1864-1870 | Witness testimony on railways, road finance, cotton growing and honey. |
| Correspondence with Orange Free State Commission on Customs Duties, July 1862 (A.79-'62) | commission or official report | 1862 | Estimates value of Free State imports via Cape and states the Free State claim to customs revenue. |
| W. W. Collins, Free Statia (reprinted 1965) | secondary literature compilation | 1860-1874 | Principal source for Free State land prices, drought, banking, prices, revenue and expenditure. |
| J. Noble, Descriptive Handbook of the Cape Colony (1875) | secondary literature compilation | 1860s-1875 | Reviews resources, agriculture, towns, manufactures, wages and trade of the Cape in the early 1870s. |
| Natal Ordinances, Laws and Proclamations vol. I 1843-1870 (Cadiz and Lyon, 1879) | legislation gazette | 1858-1862 | Texts of laws on building societies, free trade in money, the Commercial and Agricultural Bank and friendly societies. |
| Immigration Board Reports (Cape Town and Port Elizabeth 1861; Natal 1862-64) | commission or official report | 1858-1864 | Number, cost and fortunes of assisted immigrants. |
| Blue Book for the Transvaal Province 1879 | official statistical series | 1879 | Population estimates, wages, banking, revenue and expenditure for 1879. |
| Rapport van den Inspecteur Generaal van Invoerrechten, ZAR, for 1893 and 1898 | official statistical series | 1883-1898 | Series on value of Transvaal imports, duties collected and collection costs. |
| Statistical Register of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope 1890 and 1899 | official statistical series | 1888-1899 | 1891 census results, wages in 1888, railways, diamond exports, imports and exports, Customs Union trade, bank capital. |
| Statistical Year Book for the Colony of Natal 1899 | official statistical series | 1852-1899 | Natal population totals, railway statistics, revenue/expenditure and bank returns. |
| South African Republic: Report of the State Mining Engineer for 1898; State Mining Engineer returns 1894 | commission or official report | 1894-1898 | Numbers and wages of white and African employees on gold and coal mines. |
| Chamber of Mines returns of Witwatersrand gold output, as quoted by Hatch and Chalmers, The Gold Mines of the Rand (1895) | chamber of mines or recruiting records | 1887-1895 | Annual gold output in ounces and value, and 1894 Transvaal output by district. |
| Official returns of Griqualand West diamond production (Diamond Trade Act 1882 monthly statistics), as given in Silver's Handbook to South Africa 1891 | official statistical series | 1867-1889 | Series of weight and value of diamonds produced, with estimates before 1882. |
| Customs returns of gold exports from Cape and Natal 1871-88 (Silver's Handbook 1891) | official statistical series | 1871-1888 | Series of gold dust and bar exports in ounces and value. |
| Blue Books/Estimates and Imperial South African Association, Handy Notes on South Africa (1901) - Transvaal revenue and expenditure 1871-1899 | secondary literature compilation | 1871-1899 | Annual Transvaal revenue and expenditure series with commentary on dependence on gold. |
| F. Jeppe, Jeppe's Transvaal Almanac and Directory for 1889; Barnes's Transvaal Almanac 1889 | secondary literature compilation | 1875-1889 | Population estimates, Transvaal wages and bank branch networks in 1889. |
| Eyewitness and travel literature on diamond and gold fields (Payton, Chapman, Boyle, Matthews, Steytler, Mathers, Glanville, Bellairs, Smith, Silver & Co. handbooks, etc.) | newspapers periodicals | 1870-1891 | Descriptions of camp life, prices, labour, compounds, mining methods, company amalgamation and speculation. |
| Colonial newspapers and pamphlets (Overberg Courant, Eastern Province Herald, Natal Mercantile Advertiser; S.A. Pamphlets in Cory Library; Hattersley, More Annals of Natal) | newspapers periodicals | 1857-1890 | Local reports on wool markets, railway campaigns, town development and reminiscences. |
| Lady Duff Gordon, Letters from the Cape; Moodie, The Record; Pringle; de Kiewiet; Schumann; Robertson; Neumark (introduction sources) | secondary literature compilation | to 1860s | Provides the secondary-source background for the pre-1860 introduction and Schumann's economic figures. |
Inference¶
Quantification: Descriptive tables.
Source-book assembling edited primary extracts and tabulated official returns with brief editorial prefaces; the editors' interpretive claims rest on the juxtaposition of excerpts and descriptive statistics rather than any formal analysis.
Key claims¶
| Claim | Basis | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| The 1860s economy was diverse and not uniformly depressed, with agricultural diversification, growing towns and trade before the mineral discoveries. (p. 14) | Cape and Natal Blue Books, civil commissioners' reports, Collins, Noble and almanacs, read in aggregate. | Partial data |
| Wool was the only significant Cape export in the 1860s, supplying about three-quarters of export income. (p. 18) | Cape Blue Book trade tables 1865 and 1870, Port Elizabeth customs returns, and the Governor's 1867 speech. | Systematic data |
| Transport was a major constraint and cost: ox-wagon carriage was very expensive and railways were minimal by 1870. (p. 16) | Road commissioner reports, transport rate quotations from Collins and petitions, Select Committee on Railway Reports. | Partial data |
| Africans participated in the market economy in the 1860s as producers, consumers, carriers and land buyers, not only as labourers. (p. 201) | Evidence and replies before the 1865 Cape Native Affairs Commission and Natal statistics of African crops and stock. | Partial data |
| The diamond discoveries raised revenues, imports, exports and immigration, and amalgamation under De Beers raised efficiency, output and monopoly power. (p. 223) | Griqualand West production series, company histories (Reunert, Mitchell, Matthews), colonial revenue tables. | Partial data |
| The compound system was introduced to stop theft and illicit diamond buying and entrenched the migratory labour pattern. (p. 224) | Matthews on the compound system and Reunert on theft precautions; contemporary documents cited by editors. | Illustrative or anecdotal |
| Gold dramatically increased state revenues and trade, notably in the Transvaal, whose revenue rose from about £41,000 in 1872 to over £4 million in 1899. (p. 332) | Transvaal revenue and expenditure series (Jeppe, Imperial South African Association), Transvaal import values from customs inspector reports. | Systematic data |
| By 1899 mineral discoveries had pulled the territories into a more unified economy, but dependence on two exports, cheap migrant labour and colour differentiation had set in. (p. 226) | Editorial synthesis drawing on population, trade, labour and finance extracts. | Asserted |
The author's caveats¶
The editors flag unreliable figures in places: Free State censuses are noted as less reliable, the Transvaal estimates as rough, the 1890 Free State census as 'not very accurate', and Schumann's early white population estimates for the republics as possibly too high. Pre-1865 Cape statistics were discounted by the Colonial Office itself as lacking confidence. The Preface notes rigorous selection owing to space and that later periods are treated through selected problem areas.
Gaps in the evidence¶
As a source book it presents extracts without testing representativeness, so claims about the whole economy rest on selected, often official or settler/booster, voices; African and labourer perspectives are thin beyond the 1865 Commission. Serial national accounts, systematic wage and price series, and company or Chamber of Mines archives were not drawn on and would permit real tests of growth and distributional claims. Much of this archival material existed then and survives in archives today.
Replicability: Data public and well described.