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Union of South Africa : Statutes of the Union of South Africa 1923 with Table of Contents, Alphabetical and Chronological, and Table of Laws etc., Repealed or Amended by these Statutes

(Cape Town: Government Printer, 1923)

Royal 8vo; half calf with cloth sides; gilt-on-red leather spine label; pp. xxvii + 529; English text on verso, and Dutch text on facing recto. Spine a little rubbed; boards rather worn; legal firm's ownership inscription on front pastedown; endpapers foxed; a few neat, contemporary annotations. Fair to good condition. An important piece of discriminatory legislation passed in 1923 was Act No. 21, "To provide for improved conditions of residence for natives in or near urban areas, etc.", otherwise known as the Natives (Urban Areas) Act, which served to extend segregation to towns. Although pre-dating Apartheid proper, it is considered one of the cornerstones of Apartheid policy. "The Natives (Urban Areas) Act legislated on a broad front to regulate the presence of Africans in the urban areas. It gave local authorities the power to demarcate and establish African locations on the outskirts of white urban and industrial areas, and to determine access to, and the funding of, these areas. Local authorities were expected to provide housing for Africans, or to require employers to provide housing for those of their workers who did not live in the locations. Africans living in white areas could be forced to move to the locations. Local authorities were empowered to administer the registration of African service contracts, and to determine the extent of African beer-brewing or trading rights in the locations. Municipalities were also instructed to establish separate African revenue accounts based on the income from fines, fees and rents exacted from 'natives' in the locations; this money was to be used for the upkeep and improvement of the locations. The critical function entrusted to the local authorities was, however, the administration of tougher Pass laws: Africans deemed surplus to the labour needs of white households, commerce and industry, or those leading 'an idle, dissolute or disorderly life', could be deported to the Reserves. In implementing the Act, local authorities were careful to consider the needs of industry. In Johannesburg, for instance, where industrialists made no bones about wanting a large pool of permanent standby labour, it was only intermittently applied until the end of the 1940s. The Act was amended in later years." - Christopher Saunders, and others, Illustrated History of South Africa, p. 316.

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