"The Squatters' Bill." Article in Imvo Zabantsundu, March 19,1912.

The Cape Peninsula Native Association inaugurated its campaign against the proposed Squatters' Bill
of the Union Government the other day at a meeting called by it in the Ashley Hall, Cape Town. There
was a full attendance, with the Rev. Nyombolo in the chair.

The Rev. Chairman said he was very glad to attend anything, which marked a spirit of real progress
and enlightenment among their people, and he heartily thanked them on forming such an Association
as that which had called them together that evening. He sincerely desired to see it go and prosper if it
continued to watch over the rights, privileges and social and political welfare of their people. (Hear,
Hear.) These were very worthy objects and he must again congratulate them. He would ask one of the
Executive officers of the Association to explain fully the purport of their gathering.

Mr. T. Zini (President of the P.N.A.) said he would not detain them for any great length of time but it
was necessary to explain their attitude to the Squatters' Bill, and their reasons for adopting that
attitude. Turning to the more immediate subject they were met to discuss the Squatters Bill which it
was proposed to introduce into the coming session of Parliament - he would ask them to bear in mind
that they were commencing a campaign which would be a strenuous one. The harder the struggle the
better they should fight. (Hear, hear.) It was simply and solely in the interests of the farmers and
miners and of no other section of the community. He had been at some pains to make himself
acquainted with the provisions of the Bill, and he could assure them that all he could find it to contain
was indifference to the interests of the bulk of the community, and the oppression of the Natives. It
was a most iniquitous measure, and they should oppose it to the very last. If, unhappily, they were
not successful in preventing its becoming law, they would at least have it on record that from first to
last they had entered an emphatic protest against it. He was certain all Natives would combine in that.
(Loud applause.) The whole measure was one gigantic invasion of their liberties. It would most
adversely affect hundreds of thousands of Native families, which had, up till then, lived on landed
estates, and farms, paid rents to the owners, and tilled the soil for a subsistence, happy and contented
in their way of life. Why, in the Zoutpansburg district of the Transvaal alone there were 168,000
families thus living. Think what it would be to them and to all so living, if that mischievous proposition
became law. They would be driven into locations with the sole object of forcing them to work in the
mines or on the farms. If the former, they could hardly fail to prove victims of that terrible scourge,
miners phthisis, while if they went on farms they would be subject to the treatment for which the
great majority of the farmers were notorious in their dealings with the Natives, (Indignation.) The Bill
took the cruellest harshest form of assailing the sacred right of every man to choose for himself in
what manner he should earn his daily bread, and use the mental and physical attributes God has
endowed him with. And yet the Ministry in power was never tired of proclaiming that it was the real
friend of the Native and would see to it that he had justice. Yes! Miners phthisis "justice" or the
"justice" of the farmers, the greatest sweaters of labour in South Africa. Such was what was proposed
to be done by the men who made £2,000 a year each - very largely from the Natives, by the way.
That most unjust and iniquitous measure would form one of the subjects for discussion at the Native
Congress at Johannesburg on the 8th January. Many other important matters affecting the Natives
would also be thought out, and he appealed to them to see that a delegate represented the P.N.A.
there. (Hear, hear.)

Mr. B. Abrahams reminded his hearers of the very important feature of the proposed legislation, that it
shamelessly sought to benefit the large gold mining companies and the big landowners at the price of
the ruin of the health of the Natives, and with an utter disregard of all other sections of the people.
The Government really played into the hands of the capitalists in Europe who held gold mining shares
or owned vast tracts of undeveloped country men who had never even seen South Africa, in many
cases, but whose already bloated money bags the Government wished to swell to a still greater
extent. (Indignation.) In no other country in the world did the Government seek to condemn men to
contract a fell disease, saying (for that was what it meant) if they did not do that they must work for
the farmers, at the expense of their future happiness and with no prospect of advancement. He (the
Speaker) knew of nothing more unjust or tyrannical, a greater pandering to the capitalistic few at the
expense of the many. (Applause.)

Mr. Umlamlelli asked them to remember General Botha's professions. The General had said time and
again that he was going to assist the Natives to rise in the social scale, to be happy and contented.
And what was the result of it all? He now sought to rush through Parliament a measure, which would
destroy their health and be detrimental to the State. Was that the Act of a sincere well-wisher of the
Natives or of a wise far-seeing statesman? (No! No!) A more obnoxious manner of interfering with the
freedom of the subject as to the disposal of his labour he could not conceive. Worse still: it made
them court death at the instance of the mining community with the alternative of being hewers of
wood and drawers of water all their lives at 10s, or 6s. a month. In one hand death; in the other
slavery. (Indignation.)

Mr. T.H. Mobutha characterised the proposed legislation as cruel and diabolical. He trusted they would
let their protest against be a most emphatic one, ringing from end to end of the land. (Applause.) It
was a callous and shameful playing with their lives, happiness, and all their future welfare. ("It is.") It
was bad enough, nothing could be worse, to so affect those who worked in the mines or on the farms,
but the Natives were mistaken if they thought those would be the only people it would affect. It
concerned them all. The returning men from the mines would bring the seed of disease with them, to
spread it far and wide among their people. (Fierce indignation.) Where was the vaunted superiority of
the white man, if the Government thought it necessary to so unjustly and cruelly bolster him up
against the competition of the Native? (Hear, hear.) Their people were to be pushed into the gutter for
the only reason that they happened to have the unfortunate colour - black. The farmers complained of
shortage of labour, but it was they themselves who were to blame. They drove labour away. Men were
to work for them each day and every day, from sunrise to sunset on poor food and a miserable
pittance, too often filched from them on one pretext or another. And when their hard labour had made
them physical wrecks, old before their time, they were to be turned adrift to starve. (Renewed
indignation.) The Native was not lazy; he was a willing worker, if fairly treated. Look at the Diamond-fields! Was De Beer's ever short of labour? No! Was German West Africa ever short of labour? And
why? Because at both places the men were treated fairly. The Natives asked for nothing but fair
treatment. The farmers were harming themselves by their oppression and injustice, for they humbug
the Native once, but never again - he was built that way. (Laughter and applause.)

A speaker, whose reason for wishing his name withheld from print was accepted by the Chairman as
valid, thought that, consciously or unconsciously, the Government was playing into the hands of the
capitalists. In his opinion it was not the backveld farmer who wished for an Act of this description of
the Squatters' Bill. At the present time there were thousands of Natives on their farms, Natives paying
rent in money or kind, and it was not they who desired to drive them into locations. Some hundreds of
thousands of Natives had done nothing else but farm all their lives; it was their work, and they were
perfectly willing to rent suitable land from the white landowners, and so live there free, contented and
peaceful lives. But now came this Bill to drive them into the locations where it would be impossible for
them to live the lives for which alone they were suited, and to which alone they had been accustomed
from their earliest years. The idea was that with the impossibility of existence in the locations, they
would be forced into the mines. They would earn good wages there, no doubt, but at what a terrible
risk? a risk not only to themselves, but as had been pointed out by a previous speaker, to their
whole people when they should return to the Native territories broken down in health and
disseminators of the disease which had seized hold of them. (Hear, hear.) The alternative to the mines
was to go on the farms to be treated like dogs, to work hard for a miserable pittance. (Cries of "true,
true".) One could not understand some of our legislators. They were like so many acrobats,
continually turning bewildering somersaults. (Laughter.) The speaker was indebted for the phrase
"legislative acrobats" to perhaps the greatest of all in that line, the Right Hon. J.X. Merriman.
(Renewed laughter.) You never knew where to have these people or what side of them they would
show next. There was, too, the ex-Premier of Natal, Sir Frederick Moor. In England Sir Frederick had
been their very good friend, he would do this, that and the other for the Natives; he would see to it
that justice was done to them. Well, as he had said, that was in England. In Natal a few days ago he
had openly expressed himself in favour of driving them into locations, and had laid it down as his
policy that the Native should never be anything else than the servant of the white man. What did he
really mean? Were it not so serious, it would be too funny for anything. (Loud laughter.) And when
they turned to the members of the Cabinet, they saw the same sort of gymnastics even more
wonderfully done.

The Chairman, in bringing the meeting to a close, had only one regret that the lateness of the hour
made it impossible to do otherwise. He must again congratulate the Association. Its members showed
energy altogether to be praised, and conducted their meetings in a reasonable manner. They did not
ask for impossibilities and for anything out of the way. All they urged was that the Natives should be
treated fairly and justly. That was as it should be, and he hoped the Association would gain in strength
and always watch over, safeguard and advance the interests of the Natives. (Applause.) When the
speaker first heard that a Squatters' Bill was to be introduced into Parliament he had high hopes that
it would prove an entirely satisfactory way of dealing with one phase of the Native problem. He could
not help but regret saying that he was thoroughly disillusioned. To him it appeared that the Bill simply
means pauperising thousands of Natives, and consigning them to untold misery. In his journeying in
South Africa he had met many Natives who had worked 30 or 40 years on particular farms but were
then being turned adrift for the only reason that their physical powers were on the wane. No provision
was made for their old age; no consideration shown them whatever. They had been content to remain
on the land, well assured what labour they were still capable of would provide for their simple wants.
They were willing, perfectly willing, to pay, and asked only that they should be left in peace to
continue to the end the work they had served apprenticeship to. But no! The Government said they
must go into locations and, of course, where they went the younger generation would have to go also,
with the unhealthy work at the mines, or rigorous labour on the farms as their only prospect.
(Indignation.) They must firmly protest against such treatment, by all lawful methods.

Source:

Karis, T & Carter G. M. (1972). From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882-1964, Volume 1: Protest and Hope, 1882-1934. Stanford University: Hanover Press.

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