Apartheid: The U.P. Reaction¶

Literature › Works

W. B. White (1990). Apartheid: The U.P. Reaction. History Workshop, 'Structure and Experience in the Making of Apartheid', University of the Witwatersrand, 6-10 February 1990. University of the Witwatersrand, History Workshop.


Type	conference paper
Scope	Wider apartheid literature
Method	archival narrative
Period studied	1939–1953
Regions	South Africa, Cape Province, Witwatersrand, Transvaal, Natal, South West Africa
Themes	politics ideology elections, origins segregation, business and state, demography urbanisation
Citation key	`white1990`

Argument¶

White argues that the United Party (UP)-Labour Party alliance lost the May 1948 election mainly through poor organisation, not because its race policy was too liberal. The failures were voter registration and deletion, delimitation mismanagement, and a party built on Smuts's loose 'volkseenheid' and ad hoc funding. After 1948 the UP made organisational reforms and expedient retreats on race policy (Indian representation, the 1948 'Re-statement of Native Policy', the Coloured franchise) to hold marginal voters. These retreats could not win Afrikaans-speaking converts, and a business-funded trust fund and the Torch Commando alliance brought their own costs. He concludes that the UP was cornered between its English-speaking urban base and the Afrikaans-speaking marginal voters it needed. This split the party and pushed liberals towards extra-parliamentary opposition. The argument rests on party archives, private papers, interviews and election data.

Evidence and method¶

United Party papers (provincial and central head office and executive committee minutes, memoranda), private papers (Smuts, Hofmeyr, Strauss, Havenga, Warren, Waring, Jonker, Steenkamp, Shearer), interviews (Kleynhans, Graaff, Kane Berman), newspapers (Forum, Sunday Times, Cape Argus), and secondary works (Stultz, Heard, Carter, Moodie, Scher, Paton, Broughton). It also draws on White's own doctoral thesis on the parliamentary opposition, 1948-1953.

Place in the debates¶

Causes of the UP's defeat in 1948 and the National Party's rise (see White electoral politics, delimitation and party systems). Stresses organisational failure (registration, deletion, delimitation, party structure) over ideology. Argues that earlier work underestimated UP support among Afrikaans-speakers because of under-registration and roll deletions.
Was the Smuts government's pre-1948 race policy reformist or compatible with white supremacy? (see Origins, coherence and ideology of apartheid and Afrikaner nationalism). Presents Smuts as pragmatic and evolutionary (accepting African urbanisation, the Fagan Commission, 'uplift'). He relied on immigration to ease white fears, but the policy was vulnerable to National Party attack and was politically unacceptable to most white voters.
Role of capital (mining and business interests) in white opposition politics (see White electoral politics, delimitation and party systems). Shows mining and financial interests funding the UP, first ad hoc and then through the United South Africa Trust Fund. H.F. Oppenheimer's priority was winning elections, with liberalising race policy second, and the funding exposed the party to 'Hoggenheimer' attacks.

Findings¶

Organisational weakness, not just structural electoral factors or policy, is the primary explanation for the 1948 defeat. (p. 2)

Poor organisation was primarily responsible for the U.P.-L.P. alliance's loss of the May 1948 General Election.
Smuts's refusal on neutrality in 1939 split the party's Afrikaans-speaking base and shifted it towards English-speaking urban supporters. (p. 2)

precipitated a 25 per cent decline in the Party's Afrikaans-speaking support
By 1947 the UP branch system had largely decayed. (p. 3)

By July 1947 674 of 1 696 U.P. branches countrywide were moribund.
Wartime relaxation of labour-market controls drove rapid African urbanisation, which enabled African political mobilisation and heightened white fears. (p. 4)

relaxation was a 63 percent increase, between 1936 and 1946, in the country's urban African population.
Smuts made white immigration the first priority in his race policy, hoping to strengthen the white population before addressing African political rights. (p. 4)

If we were to put our problems in due order, I would first put this matter of strengthening our European population in South Africa.
The National Party's win was narrow in vote terms; it was a minority of votes, so the UP's urban concentration and the urban load mattered. (p. 5)

it only polled, moreover, about 39,4 per cent of the total and estimated votes as opposed to the 53,3 per cent attracted by the U.P.-L.P.
The better-organised Nationalists stripped UP-LP supporters from the rolls, which distorted the urban load and hid UP strength among Afrikaans-speakers. (p. 5)

succeeding in removing the names of some 12 000 U.P.-L.P. supporters from the voters' rolls of the Witwatersrand alone.
White revises upward the estimate of Afrikaans-speaking support for the UP in 1948. (p. 5)

In May 1948 about 39,5 per cent of white Afrikaans-speakers supported the U.P.-L.P. rather than the 20-25 per cent or even 18 per cent which have been proposed.
After 1948 the UP's restated Native policy moved to explicit rejection of equality and acceptance of social and residential separation, while still accepting African urbanisation. (p. 6)

The old policy had not specifically rejected equality while the new did, explicitly accepting social and residential separation
Mining and business money was central to UP finances and far exceeded the party's own pre-1948 spending, which fed the 'Hoggenheimer' charge. (p. 9)

annual U.P. Head Office expenditure in the years immediately proceeding the 1948 election had been about £40 000
Even after reorganisation and the United Democratic Front alliance, the UP lost ground, as the Wakkerstroom by-election showed. (p. 11)

the N.P., in retaining the seat, received 4,9 per cent more votes than it had been given in the 1948 election.
In 1953 the UP's overall vote share rose slightly, but its support among Afrikaans-speaking voters fell sharply. (p. 12)

fell from the approximately 39,59 per cent it had received in 1948

Evidence ledger¶

Sources used¶

Source	Kind	Period	How used
United Party Papers (Transvaal Provincial Head Office Committees, Central Head Committee, Central Executive Committee, Central Action Committee, Leader's Executive, Union Finance Committee, Division of Information files)	union or movement records	1939-1953	Minutes, memoranda and annexures document party organisation, branch decay, finances, policy shifts, the Trust Fund and responses to the Torch Commando and UDF.
U.P. Division of Information files: Evidence for Delimitation Commission (Aug 1952) and Reports on Organisation 1950-1958	union or movement records	1950-1958	Supports the claim that urban loads were understated and that the HNP removed UP voters from the rolls.
J.C. Smuts Papers (Vols. 276, 277, 279, 389)	state archives	1946-1948	Correspondence and drafts show the UP delimitation fiasco, the Fagan-based legislation, the Re-Statement of Native Policy and the Smuts Election Fund.
J.H. Hofmeyr Papers (File 3, Box A1 Diary, A1/F4 Publications)	state archives	1946-1948	Documents Smuts's social policy, Hofmeyr's views on the Havenga alliance and the Oppenheimer press syndicate plan.
J.G.N. Strauss Papers (Files 1/19/9/7/1 and 1/19/9/6/1)	state archives	1949-1952	Provides the UP's National Campaign document and the post-mortem on the Wakkerstroom by-election.
Other private papers: A.H. Jonker, L.S. Steenkamp, V.L. Shearer, N.C. Havenga, F. Waring, C.M. Warren, War Veterans' Torch Commando Papers	state archives	1947-1953	Supply immigration figures, UP Indian policy, Havenga alliance feelers, the Liberal Group and Torch Commando amalgamation terms.
Interviews with W.A. Kleynhans, Sir de Villiers Graaff and L. Kane Berman	interviews oral history	not stated	Informs claims about the General Secretary's effectiveness, the UP's conservative wing and Torch Commando leadership.
Newspapers and periodicals: Sunday Express, Sunday Times, Cape Argus, The Forum, African World	newspapers periodicals	1947-1951	Used for the HNP fund total, the Bloemfontein Congress, Hofmeyr standing down and the Trust Fund debate.
Report of the Ninth Delimitation Commission and 31 May 1947 electoral roll	commission or official report	1947	Baseline for showing urban loads were understated relative to the voters registered by polling day.
1941 van Eck Report and April 1948 Fagan (Native Laws) Commission Report; 1946 Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act; Sauer Commission Report	commission or official report	1941-1948	Establishes the Smuts government's enlightened but pragmatic race policy and the UP's later retreat.
Election results and statistics (as compiled by Heard, Stultz, Hellman, Scher)	secondary literature compilation	1936-1953	Supplies vote shares, seat majorities, urban African population growth and Coloured voter shares per constituency.
W.B. White, The South African Parliamentary Opposition, 1948-1953 (author's thesis)	secondary literature compilation	1948-1953	Source of electorate composition estimates, the Afrikaans-speaking vote share and Torch Commando/UDF narrative.
Parliamentary debate on the Separate Representation of Voters' Bill, May 1951 (via African World)	parliamentary debates	May 1951	Shows government attacks on the United South Africa Trust Fund as 'organised money power' and Oppenheimer's reply.

Inference¶

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Archival narrative political history, using party minutes, private papers and press to reconstruct UP organisation, finance and policy shifts. Election figures are used to re-estimate electoral distortions and Afrikaans-speaker support, and the process is traced chronologically.

Key claims¶

Claim	Basis	Strength
The UP lost the 1948 election chiefly through poor organisation: under-registration of urban voters, HNP deletions of UP supporters, and delimitation mismanagement. (p. 2)	UP Papers (Division of Information, Smuts Papers), Delimitation Commission roll data; the author's thesis.	Partial data
UP branch organisation had decayed severely by 1947, with 674 of 1,696 branches moribund. (p. 3)	UP Central Executive Committee minutes/annexure, 7 July 1947.	Systematic data
Afrikaans-speakers made up about 66.3% of the electorate and about 39.5% of them voted UP-LP in 1948, much higher than previous estimates of 18-25%. (p. 5)	Author's recalculation using roll data and election returns, drawing on thesis and Heard/Neuman/Stultz.	Partial data
The UP, after defeat, moved its race policy toward the NP (Indian policy, the Re-Statement of Native Policy, 1952 anti-equality propaganda) to win marginal Afrikaans voters. (p. 6)	Smuts Papers, UP Central Executive and Leader's Executive minutes, Shearer papers.	Partial data
The UP became dependent on mining and business money via the United South Africa Trust Fund, whose scale far exceeded earlier Head Office spending. (p. 8)	UP Finance Committee and Central Executive minutes; Oppenheimer's 1951 statement.	Partial data
Removing the Coloured common roll would have shifted several Cape seats to the Nationalists and altered Cape constituency boundaries. (p. 7)	Counterfactual constituency analysis from Scher's study of Coloured disenfranchisement.	Partial data

The author's caveats¶

Notes that some inferences are uncertain (e.g. 'appears', 'it is likely', 'if this report is correct') and that some voter-registration figures are minimum estimates ('not less than 1392 voters'). Does not discuss the reliability of party records.

Gaps in the evidence¶

Constituency-level registration and deletion records would allow a direct test of the under-registration and gerrymandering claims. The reliance on UP records and the author's own earlier thesis leaves the Afrikaans-support estimate unverifiable here, and there is little voter-level evidence such as surveys. Official roll data and election returns existed then and are in the archives, so a systematic reconstruction is feasible now.

Replicability: Data described but not public.