South Africa

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33740, 13 January 1975, Page 12

South Africa

Sir.—ln his letter on January 10. S.A.F.A. credited me with saying that blacks in South Africa received no

wages. He described the statement as a “blatant lie.” In fact, I made no such statement.—Yours, etc., W. L. WALLACE.

January 12, 1975. Sir —I am surprised that a reputable -newspaper publishes correspondents’ statistics without checking them against standard reference works. Editorial vigilance could eliminate a lot of confusion. For example, S.A.F.A.’s claim that the land area of South Africa is 42 per cent black can be disproved easily. The thirtieth “Official Yearbook of the Union of South Africa” says: “The total area of the Union is 472,359 square miles.” And official South African Government figures, reprinted in the 1972 “Survey of Race Relations in South Africa,” showj that the total area of the Republic’s “Bantustans” is 15,232,480 hectares, i.e. 58,813 square miles—a mere 12.5 per cent of the area of the Republic of South Africa. S.A.F.A.’s claim that two million blacks live in the white areas is also wrong. The May 6, 1970, South African census indicated that fully 8,060,773 Africans live outside African homelands, while 6,997,179 actually reside in their homelands. — Yours, etc.. NIGEL S. ROBERTS, Department of Political

Science, . University of Canterbury. January 11, 1975. Sir.—His own arguments prove S.A.F.A.’s contention that facts can have little connection with the truth. To the Rev. W. L. Wallace’s “87 per cent of land reserved for white ownership,” S.A.F.A. opposes “42 per cent occupied by blacks.” Occupation is not necessarily ownership, which i is confirmed by his claim that the 42 per cent white area is also occupied by Asians, Coloured and two million <

blacks. It is common knowledge that blacks may not own land in white areas. Land division of 42 per cent each for black and white sounds a nicely apportioned distribution, except that the population ratio is one sixth white to five sixths black. The homelands may have more rain than the white areas; this does not disprove their poor quality. If the homelands have “many mineral resources,” it is a safe bet that their exploitation is reserved exclusively for the wealthy, white mining companies, South African and overseas.—Yours, etc., M.C.H. January 11, 1975.