User:Taram21/Tomlinson Report

The Tomlinson Report was a 1954 study commissioned by the South African government into the economic viability of native reserves (later formed into the bantustans) in which the government intended to confine the black population. The report found that the reserves were incapable of supporting South Africa's black population without significant state investment.

Background[ edit]
The South African government established native reserves in the 1913 Natives Land Act as areas designated for black citizens to live in. As a result of the 1913 act, blacks could no longer own land outside of the native reserves. The 1923 Native (Urban Areas) Act authorized local governments to establish residential areas designated for black citizens, leading to the development of low-wage laborer migration to urban areas from the native reserves. While the government had intended to strictly control any limited presence of native laborers in urban areas, by World War II declining conditions had led to an outflow from native reserves and the number of black urban residents had surpassed the number of white urban residents. After the National Party took power in 1948, the government began to engage in dialogue over the state of the native reserves and how increased black urbanization affected the apartheid vision. The South African Bureau for Racial Affairs (SABRA), a conservative think tank at Stellenbosch University, emphasized the need for "vertical" segregation, a system which would enforce total segregation for black South Africans from the broader political sphere but allow for political advancement within the native reserves. Hendrick Verwoerd, who became head of the Native Affairs Department in 1950, stated in a 1948 speech to Parliament both that South Africa was a "white man’s country and that he must remain master here" and that "we are prepared to allow the Natives to be the masters."

Creation and composition[ edit]
In 1950, the Federal Mission Council of the Dutch Reformed Church passed a resolution that called on the government to examine "native life," particularly with regards to socioeconomic development in the native reserves. That same year, the government appointed the Commission for the Socioeconomic Development of the Bantu Areas to devise "a comprehensive scheme for the rehabilitation of the Native Areas with a view to developing within them a social structure in keeping with the culture of the Native and based upon effective socio-economic planning." The commission was created with support from SABRA. The commission was chaired by Frederick R. Tomlinson, professor of agricultural economics at the University of Pretoria.

The commission included four academics (including Tomlinson) and two Afrikaner farmers. The commission also included three representatives from the Native Affairs Department – M. C. de Wet Nel of the Native Affairs Group, Chris Prinsloo of the Urban Affairs Section, and C. B. Young, Under-Secretary for the Native Areas. In the process of drafting the report, the commission enlisted research specialists.

Findings[ edit]
The Tomlinson Report was presented to the government in October 1954 and ran, in its unabridged form, to 3,755 pages in 17 volumes. The report included 589 tables and 66 maps. Land additional to that set aside in the 1936 Land Act would need to be purchased and annexed to the reserves, and the state would need to develop industries in and near the reserves to create an additional 300,000 jobs. Even then, the Report said, the reserves would be able to accommodate only two-thirds of South Africa's projected black population by the year 2000. The Report also concluded that the traditional 'tribal' systems of authority used by the government to rule the reserves were not suitable for a modern industrial state.

Funding suggestions[ edit]
The commission concluded that if the reserves were to support the growing black population the government would need to invest at least £104 million over the following decade to ensure fully diversified economies in the reserves. The Commission offered the following allocation of funding for the £104 million:


 * Agricultural development – £33,886,000
 * Soil reclamation — £27,400,000
 * Credit facilities – £3,000,000
 * Sugar-cane production — £370,000
 * Fibre production — £116,000
 * Irrigation — £3,000,000
 * Forestry development — £3,000,000
 * Mining development — £1,000,000
 * Manufacturing and tertiary activities — £30,000,000
 * Urban development — £12,000,000
 * Transport and other basic facilities — £13,000,000
 * Health services — £5,000,000
 * Educational services — £3,000,000
 * Welfare services — £3,600,000
 * Total estimated expenditure: £104,486,000

Development scheme[ edit]
The Commission was critical of existing development efforts within the native reserves, stating that “individually and collectively the existing organisations do not comply with the new requirements set by the development programme. The deplorable conditions which prevail in the Bantu Areas today also testify to their present incapacity to bring about any significant development, and even to prevent deterioration." The Commission suggested that the Native Affairs Department undergo a re-organization to better support development progress. Specifically, the Commission called for establishing a development council that would advise the Minister of Native Affairs on native reserves by conducting research on trends and needs in the reserves. The Commission also called for the creation of a development corporation that would both promote black enterprises in the reserves and create enterprises that would be transferred to black ownership.

Policy suggestions[ edit]
The report offered several major suggestions for policy implementation.

First, the commission advocated for an agricultural rehabilitation scheme. The scheme would separate peasant farmers from workers. In coming to this conclusion, the Commission surveyed 111 peasant farmers and stated, based on the results, that “£56 p.a. is large enough to attract a Bantu to full-time farming in mixed farming and pastoral areas, and to bind him permanently to the land.”

Second, the commission recommended that native reserve land be divided into "economic farming units" under individual ownership.

Third, the commission recommended that the government push for industrialization in the reserves to incorporate those who, as a result of land reform, would become dispossessed. The commission called for investment in "European capital" and in education, particularly through the previously mentioned development corporation.

Reception[ edit]
SARBA received the report enthusiastically, viewing it as evidence that “apartheid could and must be made to work.” Verwoerd, however, objected to the report, refusing to implement almost all of its proposals. Verwoerd stated that the Native Affairs Department would rely on “other considered views based upon much wider practical experience of administrative affairs” to determine proper financial funding for the reserves. The report was also criticised by organisations like the African National Congress for its conservative founding assumption that the way forward for South Africa was to make the reserves capable of supporting total racial segregation, rather than to move towards integration and equal civil rights within a united South Africa.

Some have said that the Report was a turning point in South African history, which would have been dramatically different if Verwoerd had accepted the Report. But others have pointed out that the Report's recommendations, even by its own lights, would have been insufficient to make the reserves viable; and moreover the black population grew much faster than the commission had predicted.