5.2 N ATIVE T RUST AND L AND A CT : STRENGTHENING TENUOUS WHITE POLITICS
5.2.1 Territorial segregation without Native Bills is ludicrous
One cannot discuss the Native Trust and Land Act (NTLA) without referring to the Natives Land Act (NLA) of 1913, which was its precursor and the Native Administration Act, No. 38 of 1927 which anchored the administrative aspects of the two land Acts. The underlying principle of both the NLA and NTLA was territorial segregation which had been at the crux of negotiations leading up to the establishment of the Union of South Africa (McCusker et al., 2016). However, there was a 23-year gap between the two Acts which is important to account for the critical shifts that were happening during this time that were instrumental in shaping the final version of the NTLA and thus the implications of the two Acts cumulatively in racializing property relations. While the NLA cemented discriminatory foundations in South African law it was, as Beinart & Delius (2014) argue, an interim measure. The NLA mandated the
establishment of a commission to inquire and report on the areas to be set aside for the occupation by Africans. This was the Beaumont Commission which released its report in March 1916 (South African History Online, 2019b). However, Parliament did not take the outcomes of the Commission to heart until 1936 when the Native Bills were tabled in Parliament again. A member of Parliament’s remarks when the Native Trust and Land Bill was discussed on 4 May 1936 sheds light on some of the sentiments of members about the Bill,
This Bill forms the core of our native policy. It is the second Bill in the trilogy of Bills which the Prime Minister is bringing forward and if the Bill is not passed the whole of our native policy will fall to pieces… To talk about territorial separation or segregation without translating this Bill into law is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous… We are starting a new page in our native policy, and I am afraid that, in many quarters, it is not yet adequately recognised. We are turning our back entirely upon the laissez-faire policy of the past (South African Parliament, 1936: col.2897).
The last sentence of this remark is particularly interesting. The laissez-faire policy that was being referred to here are the inconsistencies on how African people held land across the Union as was clearly shown in Chapter 4. While the NLA represented the state’s intention to organise space along racial lines the Act had up until now not achieved the desired effect imagined by the state. Using previously unexplored sources including reports by the Governor-General to Parliament; deeds and property transfer records between 1913 and 1936 as well as geo- referenced data sets of rural land holdings in the Transvaal, Feinberg & Horn (2009) showed that the NLA was unsuccessful in preventing African people from buying land. Using the exception clause in the NLA which allowed the Governor-General to approve purchases, as many as 3200 farms and lots were purchased by Africans between 1913 and 1936 (Feinberg &
Horn, 2009).
While this was a considerable number of purchases, Feinberg & Horn (2009), admit that the process of using the exception clause to gain permission to purchase a farm or lot was difficult and prospective buyers had to conform to the rules and criteria set by the Native Affairs Department. Naturally, any land purchase is subject to rules and criteria, but the rules and criteria imposed by the Native Affairs Department were because of the prospective buyer’s race meaning that they were a product of the underlying principle of racializing land ownership in South Africa. Moreover, an important criterion that had significant weighting on whether
the Native Affairs Department would allow the purchase was the location of the land. The land had to be in an area already recommended by the various commissions or regional committees appointed (Feinberg & Horn, 2009). This would ensure that these approved purchases fed into rather than detracted from the goal of territorial segregation which was the hallmark of apartheid geography.
It is not possible to ignore the paternalistic approach adopted by the Native Affairs Department adopted in the process of granting permission for land purchases. Prospective purchasers had to tolerate the scrutiny of the evaluation process carried about by the Native Affairs Department which sometimes included interviews, an inquiry into the assets and sometimes visits by officials to the property to be purchased (Feinberg & Horn, 2009). Historians analysing the outcomes of the purchase agreements make the argument that the Native Affairs Department officials often demanded changes in the agreements that were beneficial for the prospective African buyers (Bergh & Feinberg, 2004; Feinberg & Horn, 2009). This may have been the case; however, it does not change the fact that the agency of prospective African buyers was limited compared to their white counterparts who were not subject to this level of scrutiny when purchasing a property.
Moreover, the Native Affairs Department was given considerable power to determine the purchasing ability of Africans and we are left to hope that there were no cases where officials acted with impunity. This becomes a necessary entry point considering the contradictions of apartheid geography concerning African land ownership. At a legal and political dimension, African people were prohibited from purchasing land with an exception that would be at the discretion of the Native Affairs Department. In practice, the exceptions granted may have been considerable, but this does not take away from the tenuous nature of how these exceptions were guaranteed. There was no legal provision which would mean if there were prospective African buyers who were disgruntled about a rejected application for exception, they had no legal provision to negotiate from. Ambiguity was beginning to be an overarching feature of African property relations and was further entrenched by the passage of the NTLA.
The promulgation of the NLA had been a significant move in developing a native policy that espoused a more conservative view of not allowing African people to own land, however, the state remained split for an extended period about a way forward. The state recognised that it needed to release more land for native occupation as the NLA had only earmarked
approximately 7% of South Africa for native occupation (Platzky & Walker, 1985). The question of which land, in what portions and how that land was to be released, however, remained a vexing issue. In the same parliamentary session of 4 May 1936, another member made the following remark,
I hope the Minister will not think because we criticise some of the provisions of the Bill, that we are opposing the Bill; this is not the case. The position with regard to this Bill is that the whites of South Africa are being asked to make great sacrifices by contributing a very large portion of their land for the settlement of natives in the future. It is a big sacrifice you are asking them to make, … Many of us are going to support the Bill, but we are anxious to see that the interests of the whites and of the country generally are not sacrificed… but we would have liked to know what the Government proposes to do with this land after the natives are placed on it to safeguard the future interests of all concerned (South African Parliament, 1936: col.2894).
This member’s remarks about the white population being asked to give up tractions of its land are important to note because it points to the growing anxieties of the white population that, in part, motivated the final version of the Bill. Remembering that the Bill was being tabled six years after the Great Depression of 1930 which had seen both mining and agricultural sectors hit hard by declines in profits (Moon, 2017). As such there was an increasingly poor white population that wanted to see legislation passed that would secure its interests (South African Parliament, 1936). While scholars note that there there was no single causal factor motivating the passage of both the NLA (Wickins, 1981; Feinberg, 1993; McCusker et al., 2016) it was in part, this increasingly threatened white population that desired to see more restrictive legislation passed. Many of the speakers following on this intervention quoted above lamented overgrazing of fertile land in the reserves and on various portions of the land within the Natal trust as a motivation for carefully choosing the land to be released under this Bill and the need to enforce more controls over the management of this land, in particular, control over the amount of stock to be kept by African people (South African Parliament, 1936). Of course, arguments of overgrazing and deforestation happening in the reserves were motivated by the need to restrict wealth accumulation by Africans through agriculture and to force Africans into migrant labour (Kepe & Nstebeza, 2011). However, it is important to note how these concerns about the state of African reserves were constructed and the motivations for the remedies put forward. The members of Parliament carefully scrutinised the schedule of areas to be released
and/or bought by Government for the African settlement, carefully removing strategic and fertile areas in the final schedule of the released areas (South African Parliament, 1936; Platzky
& Walker, 1985). But more importantly, for purpose of this study, there was a push for the state to exercise more oversight power over the current land in the reserves as well as over the land to be released through the NTLA.