Documents - Part One: Leaders and Chiefs oppose government plans

Document 7. News Report and Resolution of the Conference of Chiefs and Leaders in the Cape Province Convened by the Government, September 18, 1935

The Native Affairs Commission conference with Cape Province Natives on the Native Bills terminated when the delegates, who represent the whole Cape Province proper, passed the following resolutions, which were moved by the Paramount Chief of the Ciskei, Velile Sandile, seconded by R. H. Godlo and J. M. Dippa:

This conference welcomes the gesture of the Government in consulting Bantu opinion on the proposed legislation, and reaffirms its loyalty to the Government. On the principle placed before this conference by the Native Affairs Commission of the abolition of the Cape Native Franchise, the unanimous opinion of the conference is the unequivocal rejection of the proposal to take away the existing right to the vote. In the words of the Duke of Newcastle in 1853, 'It is the earnest desire of Her Majesty's Government that all her subjects at the Cape, without distinction of class or colour, should be united by one bond of loyalty and a common interest.' We cannot, for any consideration whatever, depart from that principle, and we see no reason for the necessity for its repeal nor making any bargain therewith. We earnestly hope the Government will refrain from its intention to remove the existing right to the franchise on the part of future descendants of the possessors of this franchise. We humbly beseech the authorities to proceed with their long overdue programme of raising the political and economic standard of the Bantu throughout the Union without stipulating that the abolition of this franchise is a quid pro quo therefore.

In answering some of the arguments advanced against our franchise, we humbly submit that
(a) Those who, in 1926, alleged that this vote was a menace to the security
of the White race by reason of its likelihood to swamp White voters when it was 16,000 to 185,000 White voters, while now it has dwindled to 11,000 to 400,000, are clearly in error, because the machinery regulating voting qualifications rests at all times with Parliament.
(b) It is argued now that it is being abolished because it is ineffective. We feel no need for commiseration as we are perfectly contented with it as it is.
(c) It is alleged that it engenders disrespect for Whites. This is not borne out by experience. On the contrary, loyalty to the Whites in the Cape is unsurpassed.
(d) We are told it causes irritation. Local evidence in this regard is conspicu­ously to the opposite.
(e) It is being abolished in order to attain uniformity. Our reply is that even in the Act of Union there are concessions to each province to retain its pre-Union traditions.
(f) We are accused of being swayed by false promises of candidates. This weakness, which is sometimes found among all electors, need not be exclusively stressed as against us.
In reply to the statement that our vote is useless, we wish to point out--
(1) That in the first instance it caused the first advance by the Whites to the Blacks, and this contact, unattained elsewhere in South Africa, produced masses of friendly Europeans acquainted with our interests by reason of this contact and common bond.
(2) It has given us an effective right and power to secure protection against much unjust projected legislation.
(3) It is directly responsible for the framing of the Native Affairs Act of 1920 with its Native conference, local councils and commission.
(4) It is the influence of this vote that secured the ear-marking of one-fifth of the poll tax for direct allocation to Native development.
(5) It has saved the Cape from the Lands Act and its harsh operation so luridly depicted in Sol. T. Plaatje's book. Native Life in South Africa.
(6) It killed the 1917 Native Administration Bill and thus saved all the Bantu of South Africa from a second ill-digested Lands Act.
(7) It has hung up the present Native Bills since 1926, thus keeping the door open for a future genuine franchise for the Northern Bantu.
(8) It successfully prevented the Maori system of separate representation in the Cape election of 1904 from being applied in this country with its inferior franchise based on colour discrimination.
(Note: Under the Maori system of separate Representation from which this Bill purports to be copied, the New Zealand constitution provides for a Maori native member in its Cabinet; but the South African government's proposal makes no such provision).
(9) It saved many Native farms situated in so-called neutral areas.
(10) It has kept out the pass laws when it was sought to have them introduced in 1887.
(11) It has effectively protected its possessors from the pin-pricks of the Curfew Bell Laws.
(12) It has saved us from evictions from towns and enabled us to own property therein.
(13) It has been a standing legal recognition of the fact that the citizens of one and the same country have their economic interests intertwined though they are racially and socially separate.
(14) It is a true reflex of Bantu tradition in that every man has a voice in his court (kgotta, inkundla), where children and females are barred.
(15) Its qualifications of property, education and money have induced us to rise in our level of civilisation generally. 
(16) We have always regarded it as an honourable "gentlemen's agreement," and when we have said "thank you" for a gift we never expect the giver to return and take back what he has freely given, according to Bantu tradition.
(17) It secured and guaranteed White leadership and supremacy in that we have always been contented to follow the advice of Europeans in our exercise of the franchise and never abused it, and have never been a danger to the Whites. On the contrary, we have embellished the House of Parliament with illustrious personages like Sir James Rose-Innes, W. P. Schreiner, Merriman, Sauer, Saul Solomon, Frost, Sir Charles Crewe, Garret, Sir Bisset Berry, Fuller and Molteno.
(18) It gave us higher education and generous grants for education where those without the vote had to rely entirely on the mercy of charity and accidental benefactors.
(19) It has given us representation for our taxation exactly where our money goes.
(20) Behind this vote lie the principles of freedom, education, full-blooded citizenship, Christian benignity, and a vast loyalty to those in power, confidence in government, elimination of rebellion (for the last Xosa war was in 1853, the bestowal of the franchise in 1854 effectively abolishing all war between us and Whites), and a liberality that gave the Union Act to South Africa with its concomitants of peace and goodwill, and a definite tertium quid between segregation and assimilation.
(21) It forms a constitutional exemption certificate from customary law for those brought up outside of tribal law, giving a qualification that is not subject to the caprice of officials.
(22) Its conditions of a money or property qualification render it superior to manhood or womanhood suffrage because it vests power only on citizens with something to lose, a responsibility of value.
(23) The biggest danger to South Africa as a whole is not the political freedom of the Africans, but the creation to-day of a disgruntled ex-voter population in future generations, better educated than their present fathers. They will feel more grieved than we who in all conscience feel sore consternation at the gloomy prospect.
 (24) The removal of this vote will resuscitate bitter feelings against the White race as a whole and compel us to identify ourselves with all anti-White propaganda, especially that already generated in all Africa by the Italo-Ethiopian conflict, this probably being the thin end of the wedge that alarmed South African White voters in the 1929 Kafir Manifesto prognostications.
(25) The abolition of our franchise will be a signal for the political declassing or degrading of the Bantu race as a whole into a sort of semi-slave or helot group of the South African population. From every conceivable point of view, this is not a step forward, but a step backward towards primitive stagnation.

With reference to Native Representative Council of the Union and the Land and Trust measures, we humbly pray that these be postponed for at least a year pending the supply of translated copies in all the vernacular tongues and the taking of the census in order that these be submitted to a Union conference under the Native Affairs Act, and that next year this conference include mem­bers returned by popular election.

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