The Economics of the Colour Bar by William H. Hutt

Author:William H. Hutt [William H. Hutt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61016-062-9
Publisher: The Institute of Economic Affairs Limited
Published: 1964-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

1See Chapter 4, p. 32.

1It has been estimated that in the Cape Town area less than 30 per cent of employed Africans are illiterate, although about a quarter are literate in the Xhosa language only.

2This is probably the case with approximately half the Africans in urban areas other than mining areas.

1The growing population of the reserves, itself a response to enhanced urban earnings (in the mines and elsewhere), could not now subsist without contributions from African earnings outside.

2The possession of cattle confers prestige in the tribe. The traditional form of bride purchase is the transfer of cattle.

3It has been claimed recently that the per capita ownership of cars by Africans in the Republic is larger than that in Russia.

1Tribal Africans tend to be improvident in other senses; but as they become adjusted to urban life, they are capable of learning the meaning of thrift.

2African labour turnover is said to be much higher in these pursuits than in the mines. But Dr S. van der Horst has estimated that, in the Cape Town area, Africans over the age of 18 spend about 60 per cent of their working days in employment.

3The relative number of African women in urban areas seemed to have been increasing until the deliberate reversal of this trend during the last few years.

4Yet the original legislation which encouraged the perpetuation of this tradition aimed, at least ostensibly, at preventing social evils.

5Enquiries into recent riots brought out the fact that the rioters were wholly from single quarters. It has been reported that, at the Langa Location near Cape Town, 12,000 married Africans are living as bachelors in single quarters.

1The problems of migratory African labour in the gold mines are complicated by the fact that about two-thirds of the Africans employed are foreigners. (See below, pp. 92–3, 99–100, and Chapter 17, p. 155.)

2See, for example, Doxey, op. cit., p. 92.

3In recruiting Africans for mining work, their fares are frequently advanced. The usual contract is for periods of service of about nine months upwards, although the average is about 14 months. The Tomlinson Commission (1951) estimated that the migratory Africans are actually earning (i.e., actually doing paid work) during a period of only about 38 per cent of their working lives,

1 Doxey, op. cit., pp. 177–8.

2This fact gives considerable weight to the argument of the government that the migrant Africans of the Republic must equally be regarded as ‘temporary sojourners’ in the mining and urban areas.

1Official control on the entry of Africans into urban areas. See Chapter 15, PP. 130–1.

1I am not suggesting, of course, that Africans employed in the Rhodesian copper belt have been permitted – by the powerful white labour union – to acquire and exercise skills freely; although a trend in that direction now seems imminent.

2Provided, of course, that the necessary disciplinary structure and the market determination of wage-rates are not frustrated.

3There is no law to forbid the apprenticeship of Africans who have managed to acquire the necessary educational qualification. But any attempt to do so would almost certainly be quashed by the Registrar of Apprenticeship, responding to labour union pressure.

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