Tomlinson Report

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Tomlinson report overview and findings

  • Commision appointed under Professor F. R. Tomlinson, an agricultural economist
  • Reported in 1955
  • Believed that economic development of the former reserves had to be at the heart of apartheid.
  • Commission believed Bantustans could be transformed by massive state investment of over £100 million (equivalent to £7bn in 2015)
  • Believed that agricultural plots were too small and migrant labour undermined agriculture - recommended creating a class of full time farmers by increasing size of lot and turning communal into private tenure
  • Advocated major funding for rural industries
  • Believed that private enterprise should be encouraged to invest in these areas
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Verwoerd reaction to findings

Rejected recommendations

  • Did not believe whites would support expenditure on this scale
  • Did not want to create competition for white businesses
  • Should develop at own pace without investment
  • If increased land, Africans loose land and go to cities for work -undermine apartheid
  • Private land ownership undermined power of chiefs
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What the government actually did

Gov prioritised policy of ‘betterment’ and ‘rehabilitation’

  • Cheaper and less disruptive
  • Perhaps over a million people forced to move into villages in 1950 and 60s. -cut across traditional values of living
  • Africans forced to sell some livestock to ease pressure on pastures -culling of livestock so unpopular NP largely abandoned it in 1960s
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The problems and contradictions in Bantustan polic

  • Substantial new areas of white-owned land bought to extend homelands- still small % of SA land area (land not proprtional to % of black in SA)
  • NP not prepared to divide SA equally
  • Africans divided into historical chieftaincies and language groups - whites not divided into Afrikaners, English, Portuguese, Jewish…
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Comments

Froz

Report

really helpful! thank you!

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