Wilfrid Harrison claimed to be Cape Town's most noted 'mob orator'. His stock answer to hecklers who interrupted his de nunciations of capitalism with interjections about the 'colour question' was, 'And what about your red nose - that is coloured, isn't it?' He would go on to explain that he was there to deal, not with the pigment in a man's skin, which was a medical mystery, but with capitalism, the cause of colour prejudice and exploita tion in general.' The evangelical socialists of Harrison's Social Democratic Federation insisted that race discrimination, like the conditions of the poor, was a 'side issue', a symptom of the tensions inherent in capitalist society. No true socialist would allow colour prejudice to divert him from his function of per suading the people to place the means of production under public ownership. Discrimination would disappear under social ism and should be ignored as being irrelevant to the labour movement.
The notion that class interest would prevail over racial an tagonism seemed more credible in the western Cape than in the north. Members of the
SD Fcertainly tried to put their theory to the test. H. MacManus quoting in his Belfast twang from William Morris and the Bible; Hunter mixing socialism with temperance; H. B. Levinson relying on economic determinism;
Arthur Noon propagating Christian socialism, and Harrison, armed revolt, took their messages to racially mixed audiences in District Six, in Salt River, and at the foot of Van Riebeeck's statue in Adderley Street. Coloured leaders reciprocated their goodwill and cooperated with socialists in the early years.
H. P. Gordon, a prospective Labour candidate for Woodstock
in 1904, took the initiative in directing the movement intoparliamentary politics, and proposed joint action with the
APO139
Class and Colour in South Africa r85o-195o
in 19o5. Abdurahman replied that 'Yours, or rather ours because we feel the same, is a hard life.' None of them ever expected 'that such brutalities, and injustices would be perpetrated under the protection of the British Rule or Mis-rule. There is only one thing for us to do, and that is sink our little differences and show a united front.' 2
The united front never took shape. For all their Hyde Park oratory, the socialists failed the sovereign test of political sin cerity. They appealed for Coloured votes but were no more prepared than liberal or racist parties to nominate a Coloured candidate in municipal or parliamentary elections. Abdurahman himself built a first-rate electoral machine, which kept him in the Cape Town municipal council from 1903 until his death in 1940. He did not need the white worker's vote and, when obliged to choose between white candidates, preferred men of wealth or standing who backed him against Labour or Afrikaner National
ist opponents. Neither white nor Coloured radicals attempted to recruit members from the Cape peninsula's 5,ooo Africans, who
were excluded from skilled work by convention almost as effec tively as in the north. Without a large following in the Coloured population, and based on a small, conservative white working class, the socialists of the Cape remained in the cocoon stage of theoretical propaganda.
Many of the Cape's more energetic socialists - the Needham brothers, Erasmus, Davidson, McKillop, Blake, Fraser, Bate man - left South Africa or moved to the Rand during the first ten years of the century. Those who remained lost their mission ary zeal, wrangled over whether or not to take part in elections, became armchair critics of the right-wing leaders, or joined the Labour party and were identified with its white supremacy policies. In spite of their failings, however, the pioneer socialists of the Cape made a significant contribution. Their insistence that class, and not race, was the basic cause of conflict left an imprint on later generations, and strengthened the hand of radicals with similar views in Natal and the Transvaal.
Socialists in the Cape belonged to the inner circle of a weak labour movement. Their counterparts on the Rand had the
advantage of appealing to a large, relatively well organized and
140
occasionally militant working class, but competed with a power ful right-wing trade union leadership. Ideological differences were therefore sharper, the conflicts within the movement more intense, than farther south. The right wing was heavily com mitted to racial discrimination. Socialists faced the dilemma of all radicals who contested elections based on an all-white franchise. They could denounce racism and suffer an abysmal defeat; or make a bid for success by trading radical principles for votes. Left-wing politicians were tempted to compromise. They concentrated their propaganda on the class war, evaded the colour issue, and when challenged rejected white labour policies as a betrayal of the white worker's interests. The white labour policy, according to Crawford's band of militant socialists, was a 'white kaffir policy' which would reduce all workers to the African's living standards.
Archie Crawford was labour's most notable maverick until Smuts had him deported in 1914. Born in Glasgow in 1883, and a fitter by trade, he came with the troops in 1902, worked on the railways at Pretoria, and was dismissed in 19o6 for agitating against retrenchments in the workshop. In the following year he unsuccessfully contested the Boksburg West parliamentary seat, but was returned as a Labour member to the Johannesburg town council. His great achievement was to found, publish and edit the Voice of Labour, 'A Weekly Journal of Socialism, Trade Unionism and Politics'. It appeared regularly from October 1908 to December I912, when it died for want of funds. Its corre spondents included active socialists throughout the country:
Harrison, Noon and Davidson of Cape Town, Norrie of Durban, Greene of Pietermaritzburg, Henry Glass of Port Elizabeth. It advertised and published extracts from the works of Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, De Leon, Eugene Debs, Blatchford and Keir Hardie; and made the first systematic attempt to spread the doctrines of revolutionary socialism. The paper, wrote its editor, 'is the barometer of working-class consciousness in South Africa'; and the failure to 'reach the moderate total of io,ooo indicates the almost criminal apathy of the working class'.
As Labour councillor, active trade unionist, member of the IL P and L RC, Crawford belonged to the top leadership until it
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Class and Colour in South Africa z850-1950
broke with him over the issue of the Fordsburg nominations He attended the series of conferences held at Durban and Johannesburg in 19o8-9 to form the Labour party and draft its constitution. Representing his newborn Socialist Society at the conference of October 19o9, together with Davidson and mem bers of the ILP he moved that they call themselves the S.A.
Socialist Party. This was defeated after a heated debate. Mathews, Mussared, Nettleton and other trade unionists told the conference that their members would not join a party bearing this name.
Socialists would do more good by organizing their fellow workers than by preaching idealism. But the I L P delegates succeeded in obtaining a majority vote for their motion to insert in the con stitution a clause calling for 'The socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange to be controlled by a democratic State in the interests of the whole community.' This was hailed as a great victory over the right wing, as was also the defeat of Sampson's policy of total segregation.
Their 'native policy', said Sampson, was the rock on which the party might founder. He would grant all Coloured persons having one white parent full political, industrial and social rights. The white and black races were first separated by nature and should be kept apart. It was morally wrong for one race to suppress or exploit another. Though he approved of the white labour policy as a means to an end, it offered no permanent solu tion. It could be dangerous to the white race, by leading to the
importation of low-wage Europeans under contract. Moreover, it disregarded the interests of Africans, who had been deprived of their land. The only natural solution was to segregate Africans in their own territory, where they could govern themselves and progress in ways they found most suitable. This could be done without taking an inch of land away from white men. Repre
sentatives of all European nations holding land in South Africa should meet to partition the country between whites and Afri cans. Meanwhile, Africans should be given their own elected councils, through which they could make direct representations to parliament.3
Delegates from the Cape SDF, the ILP and Socialist Society spoke against Sampson's motion. The most effective speech
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came from James Trembath, Kimberley's labour councillor and a leader in the struggle of 19o8 against De Beers over its decision to withdraw the customary half-holiday on Saturdays.4 The colour prejudice in Johannesburg, he said, was most un reasonable. He was proud that the majority of white workers in the Cape were in favour of full equality. Labour could not afford to alienate the Coloured, who had a powerful organization in the APo. The party would be put back fifty years if they antagonized the 8oo Coloured voters of Kimberley. When he successfully contested a municipal by-election, he had to over come the handicap imposed by an anti-colour resolution moved by Bill Andrews at Johannesburg's Labour Day rally in I9o9.
His opponents posted copies of the resolution to every African and Coloured voter in Kimberley. 'The thing is we must either have coloured men on our side or against us.' This convinced conference, but it could not be persuaded into accepting Craw ford's motion that the party should recognize only two classes in society and reject any policy based on differences of colour.
The militants were highly satisfied, in spite of this setback, which was more than compensated for by the adoption of a 'socialist objective' and the rejection of Sampson's apartheid policy. His one real regret, said Crawford, was that conference had agreed to allow trade unions to join the party on the payment of a political levy. Trembath, Sampson and Mathews had strenuously opposed his motion to admit individuals only. They wanted to get at the pockets of non-party trade unionists.
Socialism was dearer than life to him, yet he would not force it on anyone. 5 His scruples - which Trembath and the Witwaters rand trades council had shared in 19o5 - were related, however, to the disciplinary action taken against him in December I9o9.
Accusing him of disloyalty, the L R c had resolved to exclude him from its meetings. Crawford's own explanation was that the members of the committee had already nominated one another for the parliamentary elections, including the constituency of Fordsburg, to which he had a prior claim.6
His candidature was endorsed at the inaugural conference on 26 December of the S.A. Socialist Federation which had as chairman the great industrial agitator J. T. Bain of Pretoria.
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Class and Colour in South Africa r85o-195o
Born in Scotland, a fitter
bytrade, he came to South Africa in the early 88os, helped to form the miners' union, became a Transvaal burgher, fought on the side of the republics against the British, and was sent as a prisoner of war to Ceylon. Even his backing failed to give the Federation a flying start. Natal and Cape socialists, clinging to their customary parochialism, refused to affiliate. The Federation functioned only on the Rand and in Pretoria, largely as an opposition group to the Labour party which made its official debut at Durban on io January as the first national political party, with Sampson as president and Haggar as the general secretary. Labour was all set for the first round of elections under the South Africa Act.
Crawford's party disdained to join in the hue and cry against the darker man; but it did not add its voice to the protest against the colour bar in the constitution. It criticized Union in terms of the class theory, as a capitalist scheme, which had brought the workers nothing, and would take from them an increasing portion of the fruits of their labour. 'The Class War still wages' declared the
Voice in its first issue after the inauguration of Union.
7When challenged on the colour bar, Crawford took refuge in a philosophical discourse on socialist ethics, which knew neither race, colour nor creed. He would admit qualified Coloured men to the franchise and to the socialist society.
8He did not follow this affirmation of principle with a campaign to recruit them to his party or to have the colour bar deleted.
He argued instead that the white franchise was a capitalist device to stir up hostility between workers of different races.
Colour consciousness, artificially stimulated, obscured class con sciousness, which was a natural thing. 'Before they will let the white worker get hold of the reins of government, they will enfranchise the natives and exploit their ignorance.'
9Crawford contested Fordsburg against Bill Andrews, Krause
and Patrick Duncan in the general election of
191oand polled
eight votes. His team mate Jim Davidson stood in Commissioner
Street against Sampson and received twenty-five. The two social
ists fought on an uncompromising class war platform, called for
the abolition of capitalism, and studiously refrained from making
any reference in their manifesto to racial discrimination or
144Thunder on the Left African claims.10 The Labour leaders had agreed with Het Volk
that the two parties would not contest the same seats. This, said the socialists, was a betrayal of socialist principles. 'No single candidate of the South African Labour Party,' they urged, 'should receive working class support.'
1 1They did not rebuke Labour for betraying its principles
byadopting white supremacy policies. After the election, however, the
Voiceclaimed that Crawford and Davidson were the only two candidates in the Transvaal who had refused to draw the colour line, and were the first to stand for revolutionary principles. The votes they received were given 'for revolutionary Socialism and no race or colour
bar'.' 2Two other Socialist candidates, L. H. Greene in Pieter maritzburg and Arthur Noon in Cape Town, also lost heavily.
The Labour party nominated eleven candidates in the Transvaal, six in Natal and two in the Cape; and won four seats, all on the Rand, where Creswell, the party leader, Sampson, Madeley and Haggar were returned. Among those defeated were Andrews, Bain, Coward, Reid, Mathews, Mussared and Wybergh who, like Creswell, joined the party only two months before the election. Tom Maginess, the Labour candidate in Woodstock, lost by the small margin
of 25votes to John Hewat, the Unionist, and James Trembath polled 584 votes for Labour in Kimberley against the Unionist's
1,121votes. Abdurahman canvassed for the Unionists and told Trembath that he could not expect sup port from Coloured voters as long as his party in the Transvaal was determined to crush the Coloured out from every sphere of employment.'
3Trembath and Maginess, said Crawford, owed
their defeat to the white labour policy of the trades hall in Johannesburg.14Peter Whiteside found a seat in the senate by goodwill of Het Volk. 'A Ten Years fat job for Peter and the betrayal of the Workers,' noted the Voice. He was a Judas, the prototype of many present leaders who preached class war, such as Tom Mann, Andrews J.P., Tom Mathews and Mussared. He had not gone to the senate to represent the workers, for he had betrayed them as far back as 1907 by preventing his engine drivers and
firemen from supporting the miners' strike.
1 5The 'aristocrats of
C.S.A. -7
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Class and Colour in South Africa z85o-r95o
labour', wrote Crawford, were selling out for the sake of a few safe seats.16 Eyebrows were raised in some other quarters at the alliance between a 'landed aristocracy' and a working-class party."7 Yet it was not very surprising, since the two saw eye to
eye on the issue of racial discrimination. Botha had taken over the white labour policy for his election manifesto. Labour's own manifesto put forward a full-blown segregation scheme.
Based on Sampson's rejected policy, it called for the subsidiza tion of white workers in mines and factories, the expulsion of Asians, and a ban on the right of Africans to buy or occupy land outside the reserves.
Crawford put on a brave face. He was not disappointed, for to have won at the age of twenty-seven would spell popularity and put an end to his life's work! 'I stand for revolutionary Socialism,' he proclaimed, and 'refuse to draw lines of race, colour, creed, or sex. I only know the class division, its cause, and the struggle which arises therefrom; a struggle which will cease when there is only one class and that the nation. '18 He took his defeat badly, in fact, and relinquished control of his paper and press a few weeks later to commence a thirteen months' tour of the 'industrial world'. Visiting Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Britain, he reported on wages, working conditions and the movement, hobnobbed with radi
cals, addressed meetings and poured scorn on 'reformism' and 'trade union fakirs'. He enlisted writers for the Voice and with less success potential revolutionary settlers for South Africa.
This Odysseus, this wanderer, wrote his admirers, is probably 'the first of our class to circumnavigate the Industrial World on behalf of Socialism.19
His small band of followers, disheartened by their poor show ing and at war with the Labour party, turned their backs on parliament. The working class, they argued, could not be eman cipated through politics alone. Any labour movement would lapse into reformism and class collaboration if it was not founded on revolutionary industrial unionism as defined by the American syndicalist Eugene Debs: 'the unity of all the workers within one organization, subdivided in their respective departments, and organized, not to fraternize with the exploiting capitalists,
146