THE argument of this essay is illustrated mainly by reference to policies and conditions in the Republic (formerly the Union) of South Africa. Through the pressure of world opinion and the force of internal criticism, these policies and conditions are currently in process of significant modification – some changes being in a seemingly liberal direction and others in a seemingly totalitarian direction. The changes have been continuing whilst this book has been in the press; but its purpose is not to provide an up-to-date account of the racial situation in South Africa.

WILLIAM HAROLD HUTT was born in 1899. He was educated in London and served in the R.F.C. and R.A.F. from 1917 to 1919. After the war he studied at the London School of Economics. He worked for several years with Benn Brothers, London, and joined the University of Cape Town in 1928. He was appointed Professor of Commerce and Dean of the Faculty of Commerce in 1931 and has held this post ever since.

WHY DO the non-white peoples of the world today enjoy a much lower average standard of material well-being than the white peoples? The answer is compounded of history, climate, custom, powerful inertias, insecurity for investment, and legislative barriers to employment. How far can their inferior economic status be said to be caused by natural handicaps and how far by injustice at the hands of white people? Usually there is a mixture of causes.

THE racial composition of the population of the Republic of South Africa may be summarised briefly. The Whites (inappropriately termed ‘Europeans’) make up about one-fifth. The home language of about 60 per cent – the Afrikaners – is Afrikaans, and of the remainder, English. History has created and the politicians have perpetuated a political, and to some extent an economic, cleavage between the two white sections.

THE racial problems of the Republic of South Africa are, I believe, incomparably more complex than those of any other country in the world. There is more ethnological and sociological variety; wider dispersion in the standards of education, earning ability and money incomes per head; and the difficulties which arise in any attempt to design an institutional framework under which peaceful relations can be achieved among the members of this conglomeration appear at first almost insuperable.

THE earlier economic backwardness of the Afrikaners in relation to the comparatively prosperous English-speaking section of the South African population contributed to anti-British resentment. In this Chapter it is proposed to consider briefly the reasons for the persistence of relative poverty among the Afrikaners during this century, and the feelings of injustice which it created.

IN ANY study of colour injustice in the Republic of South Africa, it is essential to explain the traditional, but by no means unchanging, colour attitudes of the Afrikaners; for the nearly universally condemned apartheid policy has come to be identified with a government which represents especially (but not entirely) the Afrikaner voters.

THE facts about ‘Chinese slavery’ are, briefly, as follows. During the Boer War, the bulk of the Africans who, as we shall see, had provided the larger part of mining labour, ceased to trek to the mines for employment.

TRIBAL BACKGROUND

TO understand the position of the Africans in the economy of South Africa and the rights and wrongs of the system, it is essential to know something of their tribal institutions and the attitudes formed in their homelands – ‘the reserves’.

A WIDE discrepancy between the earnings of Africans and the earnings of virtually unskilled white overseers seems to have been established as a tradition in the 1880s in the diamond mines. I have suggested that this discrepancy could be partly explained by the market forces of supply and demand. White supervisors were needed, whilst they had better-paid alternatives than the Africans.