Racial Policies in South Africa

Extract

Since wartime days South Africa has been faced, both at home and abroad, with a rising tide of feeling and opinion which demands a solution to its problems of population groups, European, African, Cape Coloured and Indian, on lines in accordance with justice and Christianity. It is no longer possible to look upon the Non-White peoples as perpetually or indefinitely condemned to be servants and labourers; and such views, common in the press ten years ago, are now rarely seen. All parties realise that only a policy that gives full justice and opportunity will have any hope of success. Hence the rival policies, which formerly tended to don the appearances of Liberal and Repressionist, now meet on grounds of fairness and practicability. Each claims to be the only policy which combines justice to all groups with practical feasibility; while all, in greater or lesser degree, claim to represent Christian principles.

Leaving aside, therefore, political policies of parties, which aim largely at political or commercial ends and which do not face the problem squarely, it will be useful to make a short survey of the theoretical policies at present being advocated in the Union. They may be classed as four in number: Apartheid or Separation, Parallelism, Trusteeship, and Assimilation.